Description:

In the past three years, as the key protein suggested to be involved in host cell entry of SARS-CoV-2, studies of ACE2 aroused people's attention again. Tracking the expression of ACE2 in vivo is crucial to further understanding of COVID-19, dynamically monitoring the effect of antiviral therapy and the development of related vaccines. It is also expected to further conduct in-depth research on the physiological effects of ACE2 and RAAS, and the mechanism of ACEI/ARB (32). With the development of both molecular imaging agents and related equipment, several ACE2-targeting PET imaging agents have been investigated based on different strategies while some of them were tested in clinical trials. The aim of this study was to intercept key ACE2-binding sites from coronavirus RBD and test their potential as ACE2-targeting PET agents.