MINI REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Inflammation Pharmacology
This article is part of the Research TopicTargeted Drug Delivery and Mode of Action of Small Molecules in NeuroinflammationView all 10 articles
CX3CR1: A Potential Microglia-Specific PET Imaging Target in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases
Provisionally accepted
- 1Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
- 2Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, United States
- 3Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, United States
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Microglia are the resident immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), playing a crucial role in maintaining brain homeostasis and mediating neuroimmune responses. The chemokine receptor CX3CR1, predominantly expressed on microglia, regulates microglial function via interactions with its neuronal ligand CX3CL1. The CX3CR1-CX3CL1 signaling axis supports synaptic pruning and anti-inflammatory functions in healthy brains, but exhibits complex, context-dependent roles in neurodegenerative diseases. In Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) models, CX3CR1 deficiency shows paradoxical outcomes, attenuating or exacerbating amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau pathologies in AD, while consistently worsening α-synuclein-induced neurodegeneration in PD. Although CX3CR1 emerges as a promising therapeutic and diagnostic target, its complex role in microglial dynamics remains incompletely understood. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging provides a powerful, noninvasive method for investigating biological processes in vivo. There is an urgent need to develop and validate new PET tracers targeting microglial CX3CR1 in the CNS, further offering new opportunities for the diagnosis and treatment of neuroinflammation-associated neurodegenerative diseases.
Keywords: Microglia, CX3CR1, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Positron emissiontomography tracers
Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Yang, Wang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Changning Wang, cwang15@mgh.harvard.edu
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