Development of a novel PET ligand, [11C]GO289 targeting CK2 expressed in the brain

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful imaging tool that enables early in vivo detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD). For this purpose, various PET ligands have been developed to image β-amyloid and tau protein aggregates characteristically found in the brain of AD patients. In this study, we initiated to develop another type of PET ligand that targets protein kinase CK2 (formerly termed as casein kinase II), because its expression level is known to be altered in postmortem AD brains. CK2 is a serine/threonine protein kinase, an important component of cellular signaling pathways that control cellular degeneration. In AD, the CK2 level in the brain is thought to be elevated by its involvement in both phosphorylation of proteins such as tau and neuroinflammation. Decreased CK2 activity and expression levels lead to β-amyloid accumulation. In addition, since CK2 also contributes to the phosphorylation of tau protein, the expression level and activity of CK2 is expected to undergo significant changes during the progression of AD pathology. Furthermore, CK2 could act as a potential target for modulating the inflammatory response in AD. Therefore, PET imaging targeting CK2 expressed in the brain could be a useful another imaging biomarker for AD. We synthesized and radiolabeled a CK2 inhibitor, [11C]GO289, in high yields from its precursor and [11C]methyl iodide under basic conditions. On autoradiography, [11C]GO289 specifically bound to CK2 in both rat and human brain sections. On baseline PET imaging, this ligand entered and rapidly washed out of the rat brain with its peak activity rather being small (SUV < 1.0). However, on blocking, there was no detectable CK2 specific binding signal. Thus, [11C]GO289 may be useful in vitro but not so in vivo in its current formulation. The lack of detectable specific binding signal in the latter may be due to a relatively high component of nonspecific binding signal in the overall rather weak PET signal, or it may also be related to the known fact that ATP can competitively binds to subunits of CK2, reducing its availability for this ligand. In the future, it will be necessary for PET imaging of CK2 to try out different non-ATP competitive formulations of CK2 inhibitor that can also provide significantly higher in vivo brain penetration.