Vladimir Denisov1,2, Arnaud Comment3,4, Paul Vasos5, Sami Jannin4, Jacques van der Klink4, Riddhiman Sarkar5, Geoffrey Bodenhausen5, Helene Hall1, Deniz Kirik1,2
1Department of Experimental Medical Science, Brain Repair and Imaging in Neural Systems, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; 2Lund University Bioimaging Center, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; 3Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; 4Laboratory for Physics of Nanostructured Materials, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; 5Laboratory for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Choline is an important precursor of acetylcholine, betaine and phosphatidylcholine. Its metabolism, which represents an important biomarker in oncology, can be studied using hyperpolarized 15N MRS. Here we investigated possibility of the transfer of 15N-choline hyperpolarizarion from nitrogen to protons with subsequent 1H MRS detection. The results indicate that the polarization transfer methods can be used to utilize the long relaxation time of 15N-choline for the storage of nuclear hyperpolarization (thus allowing more time for the sample delivery, biodistribution and metabolic conversion), and subsequently obtain an improved spectral resolution of metabolites together with superior sensitivity, provided by the 1H detection.