Direct in vivo measurement of absolute metabolite concentrations using 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Whilst in vivo NMR spectroscopy provides much useful biochemical information, a limitation to such studies has been the difficulty in quantitating the results to obtain absolute metabolite concentrations. We report here a simple direct method to obtain absolute metabolite concentrations when using in vivo NMR with radiofrequency surface coils. The method has been validated for nucleoside triphosphates in two tissues; rat brain and skeletal muscle. The results obtained are in close agreement with nucleoside triphosphate concentrations obtained using other methods. Precautions for the accurate application of the method are discussed. This method can be applied to other metabolites, coils and NMR nuclei.