Compact, low-cost NMR spectrometer and probe for dissolution DNP.

The desire for higher magnetic resonance sensitivity has led to the development of multiple home-built and commercial dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization polarizers. The emergence of polarizers capable of variable magnetic field strengths desires a versatile standalone spectrometer and NMR circuit to fulfill detection needs at different frequencies. We present a benchtop NMR spectrometer with a duplexer capable of serving high-field solid and liquid state NMR applications up to 450 MHz. A detailed view of the employed probe is discussed. Tuning and matching schemes are investigated yielding and experimentally verifying closed-form equations to estimate the nutation frequency for a remotely tuned and matched sample coil.

Assessment of early diabetic renal changes with hyperpolarized [1-(13) C]pyruvate.

BACKGROUND: This experimental study explores a novel magnetic resonance imaging/spectroscopic (MRI/MRS) method that measures changes in renal metabolism in a diabetic rat model. This hyperpolarized metabolic MRI/MRS method allows monitoring of metabolic processes in seconds by >10 000-fold enhancement of the MR signal. The method has shown that the conversion of pyruvate to bicarbonate, i.e. pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) activity, is significantly altered in the myocardium already at the onset of diabetes, and the predominant Warburg effect is a valuable cancer maker via the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. We hypothesize that a similar change in PDH and LDH could be found in the early diabetic kidney. METHODS: In a streptozotocin rat model of type 1 diabetes, hyperpolarized (13) C-MRI and blood oxygenation level-dependent (1) H-MRI was employed to investigate the changes in renal metabolism in the diabetic and the control kidneys in vivo. RESULTS: The diabetic kidney showed a 149% increase in the lactate/pyruvate ratio compared with the control rat kidney, whereas the bicarbonate/pyruvate ratio was unchanged between the diabetic and the control rat kidneys, consistent with literature findings. These metabolic findings paralleled a reduced intrarenal oxygen availability as found by blood oxygenation level-dependent MRI. DISCUSSION: Hyperpolarized (13) C-MRI shows promise in the diagnosis and monitoring of early renal changes associated with diabetes, with the pyruvate/lactate ratio as an imaging biomarker for regional renal changes.

Assessment of real-time myocardial uptake and enzymatic conversion of hyperpolarized [1-¹³C]pyruvate in pigs using slice selective magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Hyperpolarization of ¹³C-labeled energy substrates enables the noninvasive detection and mapping of metabolic activity, in vivo, with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Therefore, hyperpolarization and ¹³C MRS can potentially become a powerful tool to study the physiology of organs such as the heart, through the quantification of kinetic patterns under both normal and pathological conditions. In this study we assessed myocardial uptake and metabolism of hyperpolarized [1-¹³C]pyruvate in anesthetized pigs. Pyruvate metabolism was studied at baseline and during dobutamine-induced stimulation. We applied a numerical approach for spectral analysis and kinetic fitting (LSFIT/KIMOfit), making a comparison with a well-known jMRUI/AMARES analysis and γ-variate function, and we estimated the apparent conversion rate of hyperpolarized [1-¹³C]pyruvate into its downstream metabolites [1-¹³C]lactate, [1-¹³C]alanine and [¹³C]bicarbonate in a 3 T MR scanner. We detected an increase in the apparent kinetic constants (k(PX) ) for bicarbonate and lactate of two-fold during dobutamine infusion. These data correlate with the double product (rate-pressure product), an indirect parameter of cardiac oxygen consumption: we observed an increase in value by 46 ± 11% during inotropic stress. The proposed approach might be applied to future studies in models of cardiac disease and/or for the assessment of the pharmacokinetic properties of suitable ¹³C-enriched tracers for MRS.

How the signal-to-noise ratio influences hyperpolarized 13C dynamic MRS data fitting and parameter estimation.

MRS of hyperpolarized (13) C-labeled compounds represents a promising technique for in vivo metabolic studies. However, robust quantification and metabolic modeling are still important areas of investigation. In particular, time and spatial resolution constraints may lead to the analysis of MRS signals with low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The relationship between SNR and the precision of quantitative analysis for the evaluation of the in vivo kinetic behavior of metabolites is unknown. In this article, this topic is addressed by Monte Carlo simulations, covering the problem of MRS signal model parameter estimation, with strong emphasis on the peak amplitude and kinetic model parameters. The results of Monte Carlo simulation were confirmed by in vivo experiments on medium-sized animals injected with hyperpolarized [1-(13) C]pyruvate. The results of this study may be useful for the establishment of experimental planning and for the optimization of kinetic model estimation as a function of the SNR value.