Hyperpolarised [2-¹³C]-pyruvate by ¹³C SABRE in an acetone/water mixture

Signal Amplification By Reversible Exchange (SABRE) can provide strong signal enhancement (SE) to an array of molecules through reversible exchange of parahydrogen (pH₂) derived hydrides and a suitable substrate coordinated to a transition metal. Among the substrates that can be used as a probe for hyperpolarised NMR and MRI, pyruvate has gained much attention. SABRE can hyperpolarise pyruvate in a low cost, fast, and reversible fashion that does not involve technologically demanding equipment. Most SABRE polarization studies have been done using methanol-d₄ as a solvent, which is not suitable for in vivo application. The main goal of this work was to obtain hyperpolarized pyruvate in a solvent other than methanol which may open the door to further purification steps and enable a method to polarize pyruvate in water in future. This work demonstrates hyperpolarization of the [2-¹³C]pyruvate as well as [1-¹³C]pyruvate by SABRE in an acetone/water solvent system at room temperature as an alternative to methanol, which is commonly used. NMR signals are detected using a 1.1 T benchtop NMR spectrometer. In this work we have primarily focused on the study of [2-¹³C]pyruvate and investigated the effect of catalyst concentration, DMSO presence and water vs. acetone solvent concentration on the signal enhancement. The relaxation times for [2-¹³C]-pyruvate solutions are reported in the hope of informing the development of future purification methods.