Brain metabolism under different anesthetic conditions using hyperpolarized [1-13 C]pyruvate and [2-13 C]pyruvate.

Carbon-13 NMR spectroscopy (13 C MRS) offers the unique capability to measure brain metabolic rates in vivo. Hyperpolarized 13 C reduces the time required to assess brain metabolism from hours to minutes when compared with conventional 13 C MRS. This study investigates metabolism of hyperpolarized [1-13 C]pyruvate and [2-13 C]pyruvate in the rat brain in vivo under various anesthetics: pentobarbital, isoflurane, α-chloralose, and morphine. The apparent metabolic rate from pyruvate to lactate modeled using time courses obtained after injection of hyperpolarized [1-13 C]pyruvate was significantly greater for isoflurane than for all other anesthetic conditions, and significantly greater for morphine than for α-chloralose. The apparent metabolic rate from pyruvate to bicarbonate was significantly greater for morphine than for all other anesthetic conditions, and significantly lower for pentobarbital than for α-chloralose. Results show that relative TCA cycle rates determined from hyperpolarized 13 C data are consistent with rates previously measured using conventional 13 C MRS under similar anesthetic conditions, and that using morphine for sedation greatly improves detection of downstream metabolic products compared with other anesthetics.

Identification of a pyruvate-to-lactate signature in pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms.

OBJECTIVE: We used transcriptomic profiling and immunohistochemistry (IHC) to search for a functional imaging strategy to resolve common problems with morphological imaging of cystic neoplasms and benign cystic lesions of the pancreas. METHODS: Resected pancreatic cancer (n = 21) and normal pancreas were laser-capture micro-dissected, and transcripts were quantified by RNAseq. Functional imaging targets were validated at the protein level by IHC on a pancreatic adenocarcinoma tissue microarray and a newly created tissue microarray of resected intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) and IPMN-associated adenocarcinomas. RESULTS: Genes encoding proteins responsible for cellular import of pyruvate, export of lactate, and conversion of pyruvate to lactate were highly upregulated in pancreatic adenocarcinoma compared to normal pancreas. Strong expression of MCT4 and LDHA was observed by IHC in >90% of adenocarcinoma specimens. In IPMNs, the pyruvate-to-lactate signature was significantly elevated in high grade dysplasia (HGD) and IPMN-associated adenocarcinoma. Additionally, cores containing HGD and/or adenocarcinoma exhibited a higher number of peri-lesional stromal cells and a significant increase in peri-lesional stromal cell staining of LDHA and MCT4. Interestingly, the pyruvate-to-lactate signature was significantly upregulated in cores containing only low grade dysplasia (LGD) from patients with histologically confirmed IPMN-associated adenocarcinoma versus LGD cores from patients with non-invasive IPMNs. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest prospective studies with hyperpolarized [1-13C]-pyruvate magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging are warranted. If these IHC results translate to functional imaging findings, a positive pyruvate-to-lactate imaging signature might be a risk factor for invasion that would warrant resection of IPMNs in the absence of other worrisome features.

Assessing recovery from neurodegeneration in spinocerebellar ataxia 1: Comparison of in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy with motor testing, gene expression and histology.

Suppression of transgene expression in a conditional transgenic mouse model of spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1) reverses the Purkinje cell pathology and motor dysfunction that are hallmarks of SCA1. We previously showed that cerebellar neurochemical levels measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) correlate with progression of pathology and clinical status of patients and that abnormal neurochemical levels normalize upon suppression of transgene expression, indicating their potential as robust surrogate markers of treatment effects. Here we investigated the relative sensitivities of MRS, histology, transgene expression and motor behavioral testing to disease reversal in conditional SCA1 mice. Transgene expression was suppressed by doxycycline administration and treated and untreated mice were assessed by MRS at 9.4tesla before and after treatment and with an accelerating Rotarod, histology and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for ataxin-1 transgene expression following doxycycline treatment. The MRS-measured N-acetylaspartate-to-myo-inositol ratio (NAA/Ins) correlated significantly with the molecular layer (ML) thickness and transgene expression. NAA/Ins, ML thickness and transgene expression were highly significantly different between the treated vs. untreated groups (p<0.0001), while the Rotarod assessment showed a trend for treatment effect. MRS, qPCR and histology had high sensitivity/specificity to distinguish treated from untreated mice, all with areas under the curve (AUC)=0.97-0.98 in receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, while Rotarod had significantly lower sensitivity and specificity (AUC=0.72). Therefore, MRS accurately reflects the extent of recovery from neurodegeneration with sensitivity similar to invasive measures, further validating its potential as a surrogate marker in pre-clinical and clinical treatment trials.