Bacterial infections are a central cause of mortality in the world and affect all areas of medicine ranging from cardiology to oncology. Bacterial infections remain a major health problem despite the availability of effective antibiotics, because their diagnosis is challenging and because they are frequently treated with ineffective antibiotics, due to the widespread rise of bacterial drug resistance. In this report, we present a new PET contrast agent, composed of F-18 conjugated to maltodextrins (MD18F), which can for the first time image bacteria in vivo with the specificity and sensitivity needed to detect early stage infections and measure drug resistance in vivo in real time. We show here that MD18F can detect as few as 105 E.coli colony forming units (CFUs) in rats, which is 3-4 orders magnitude higher in sensitivity than FDG, the current clinically used bacterial infection contrast agent. In addition, we demonstrate that MD18F can distinguish bacterial infections from inflammation, and has specificity for bacterial infections, giving it the potential to identify infections clinically without a biopsy. We demonstrate that MD18F can monitor treatment efficacy in vivo and can identify beta lactam resistance in E.coli in real time, thus providing physicians with a powerful tool for guiding antibiotic selection. Finally, we demonstrate that MD18F can image implant infections in rats. We anticipate numerous clinical applications of MD18F given the widespread use of PET and the pervasiveness of infections in medicine.

Maltodextrins image bacterial infections and drug resistance by positron emission tomography

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.