Boyang Zhang1, Xiang Xu1,
Jae-Seung Lee1,2, Gil Navon3, Ravinder R. Regatte2,
Alexej Jerschow1
1Department of Chemistry,
New York University, New York, NY, United States; 2Department of
Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United
States; 3School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv,
Israel
The intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is an irreversible process, associated with lower back pain. Glycosaminoglycan (GAG) is one of the major components in discs. Changes of [GAG] are believed to indicate the stages of disc degereration. We demonstrate the validation of center-corrected gagCEST approach to assess [GAG] in the disc in vitro. The CEST ratio showed good correlations both with fixed charge density and [N-acetyl], respectively obtained from 23Na and 1H NMR spetra.This method provides a possible solution to detect early degenerated disc. Center-corrected CEST, inspired by the WASSR approach, is essential to obtain reproducible results.