In vivo 13C NMR spectroscopy of the human prostate

The metabolism of the normal and hyperplastic human and rat prostate differs from that of other tissues in that this organ supports and secretes high concentrations of citrate. During the dedifferentiation process that is characteristic of neoplasia, the ability of the prostate to maintain these high citrate levels is markedly diminished. We undertook a natural abundance 13C NMR study of the human and rat prostate in vitro and the human organ in vivo in order to determine whether the amounts of citrate in the nonmalignant prostate were sufficiently high to be detected. We report here our success at detecting citrate via 13C NMR in all three of these systems.