Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)

We report initial NMR studies of gas dynamics in a particle bed fluidized by laser-polarized xenon (129Xe) gas. We have made preliminary measurements of two important characteristics: gas exchange between the bubble and emulsion phases and the gas velocity distribution in the bed. We used T2* contrast to differentiate the bubble and emulsion phases by choosing solid particles with large magnetic susceptibility.

We report a systematic study of xenon gas diffusion NMR in simple model porous media, random packs of mono-sized glass beads, and focus on three specific areas peculiar to gas-phase diffusion. These topics are: (i) diffusion of spins on the order of the pore dimensions during the application of the diffusion encoding gradient pulses in a PGSE experiment (breakdown of the narrow pulse approximation and imperfect background gradient cancellation), (ii) the ability to derive long length scale structural information, and (iii) effects of finite sample size.

Pulsed-field-gradient NMR techniques are demonstrated for measurements of time-dependent gas diffusion. The standard PGSE technique and variants, applied to a free gas mixture of thermally polarized xenon and O2, are found to provide a reproducible measure of the xenon diffusion coefficient (5.71 x 10(-6) m2 s-1 for 1 atm of pure xenon), in excellent agreement with previous, non-NMR measurements.

We demonstrate nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging of the flow and diffusion of laser-polarized xenon (129Xe) gas undergoing convection above evaporating laser-polarized liquid xenon. The large xenon NMR signal provided by the laser-polarization technique allows more rapid imaging than one can achieve with thermally polarized gas-liquid systems, permitting shorter time-scale events such as rapid gas flow and gas-liquid dynamics to be observed.

Hypoxia is considered to be a major cause of tumor radioresistance. Reoxygenation of previously hypoxic areas after a priming dose of radiation is associated with an increase in tumor radiosensitivity. In a study of a hypoxic mammary carcinoma, 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectra showed statistically significant increases in metabolite ratios (phosphocreatine/Pi and nucleotide triphosphate/Pi) after 65 and 32 Gy. The maximum changes in metabolite ratios after 32 Gy occurred at 48 h, although significant changes were detected at 24 h.

A technique is described which reduced the magnetic susceptibility induced line broadening in NMR spectra obtained from three biological systems at 4.7 Tesla. Proton spectra from a sealed suspension of HL60 leukemic myeloblasts yielded minimum linewidths of 1.3 Hz at 200 MHz (0.0065 ppm) after 10 min of automated shimming. 31P spectra from an in vivo murine MCa mammary carcinoma yielded a well-resolved phosphorylcholine resonance without proton decoupling and with the resistive shim coil currents set to zero.

The results of an initial study on the feasibility of using the phosphonium analog of choline to follow the metabolism of phosphatidylcholine in tumors in vivo using 31P NMR are reported. C3H/He mice bearing a mammary carcinoma tumor on the foot pad were fed a choline-free diet supplemented with the phosphonium analog of choline. Metabolites of this compound, including the phosphonium analogs of phosphatidylcholine, phosphocholine, glycerophosphocholine, and betaine were observed noninvasively in vivo in tumors by 31P NMR after 2-3 weeks of feeding.

The effect of 6-aminonicotinamide on the metabolism of RIF-1 tumor cells was investigated using 13C and 31P NMR spectroscopy. 6-Aminonicotinamide can be metabolized to 6-amino-NAD(P), a competitive inhibitor of NAD(P)-requiring processes. 40 microM 6-aminonicotinamide led to an inhibition of 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase and an accumulation of 6-phosphogluconate. A subsequent accumulation of the 6-phosphogluconate precursor 6-phosphoglucono-delta-lactone was observed in the 13C NMR spectrum.

The chemotherapeutic regimen of N-(phosphonacetyl)-L-aspartate (PALA) followed 17 h later by 6-methylmercaptopurine riboside (MMPR) and 6-aminonicotanamide (6AN) has been shown to be a potent sensitizer of anti-neoplastic therapy. We undertook this study to compare the therapeutic and metabolic effects of this triple drug combination vs one of its components, 6AN, in a murine mammary carcinoma.

The effect of cyclophosphamide on the metabolic profile of a mammary carcinoma implanted on the foot of mouse was studied by 31P NMR spectroscopy both in vivo and in perchloric acid extracts. The ratio nucleotide triphosphate:P(i) was significantly elevated in cyclophosphamide treated tumours relative to untreated tumours after 96 h in vivo (p