Jerry S. Cheung1,2, Shu Juan Fan1,2,
Darwin Shan Gao1,2, Kannie W.Y. Chan1,2, April M. Chow1,2,
Kwan Man3, Ed X. Wu1,2
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and
Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR,
China; 2Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The
University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China; 3Department
of Surgery, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
Carbon
tetrachloride (CCl4) intoxication is a well-characterized,
reproducible and the most commonly used experimental model of liver fibrosis.
Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) can provide
insights into in vivo liver metabolism noninvasively, yet detailed in vivo
MRS study of CCl4-induced liver fibrosis model has been limited.
The aim of this study was to characterize early metabolic changes in CCl4-induced
liver fibrosis in rodents by means of single-voxel 1H MRS. Our
experimental results demonstrated that 1H MRS at high field may be
valuable in characterizing metabolic changes in liver, in particular those
related to lipid and glutamine metabolism, after CCl4 insult.