An ACE2 PET imaging agent derived from 18F/Cl exchange of MLN-4760 under phase transfer catalysis

Abstract

BackgroundAngiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a key protease in the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and was the first human ACE homologue (Donoghue et al. 2000). ACE2, a new protein-zinc metalloproteinase, was initially thought to be distributed only in the kidneys, heart, and testes, but was subsequently found to be expressed to varying degrees in the lungs, brain, liver, spleen, pancreas, stomach, intestine, bladder, adipocytes, and vascular endothelial cells (Roca-Ho et al. 2017;Hikmet et al. 2020). ACE2 is