Feasibility of multianimal hyperpolarized (13) C MRS

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Metabolic Imaging
• Preclinical Research

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) offers real-time metabolic investigation capabilities.
• Hyperpolarized (HP) (13) C agents enhance MRS sensitivity for metabolic studies.
• Current HP MRS technology faces cost and efficiency limitations for high-throughput animal studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of simultaneous multi-animal HP MRS for preclinical research.
• To enhance the throughput of metabolic investigations using HP MRS.
• To address the limitations of current HP technology in animal studies.

Main Methods:

• Developed and tested a dual-coil strategy for spatially localized multivolume MRS.
• Assembled and characterized a dual-mouse system for simultaneous scanning.
• Utilized enzyme phantoms and in vivo scans with HP [1-(13) C] pyruvate in normal and tumor-bearing mice.

Main Results:

• Achieved spatially localized MRS using geometric separation, decoupling, and low impedance preamplifiers.
• Enabled straightforward metabolite differentiation at 7 Tesla in phantoms and in vivo.
• Demonstrated comparable performance to conventional single-animal HP MRS acquisitions.

Conclusions:

• Established the feasibility of multi-animal HP (13) C MRS.
• Showcased throughput scalability with the number of simultaneously scanned animals.
• Highlighted the potential for substantial improvements in preclinical study efficiency.