Meeting Banner
Abstract #4524

In Vivo Studies on a Hyperpolarized Choline Contrast Agent: Design and Implementation of a New Biomarker

Hyla Allouche-Arnon1, Aaron K. Grant2, Elena Vinogradov2, Xiaoen Wang3, Robert E. Lenkinski3, Ayelet Gamliel1, Ruppen Nalbandian1, Lucio Frydman4, John Moshe Gomori1, Claudia Monica Barzilay5, Rachel Katz-Brull1,6

1Department of Radiology, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel; 2Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston,, MA, United States; 3Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 4Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; 5Medicinal Chemistry-School of Pharmacy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel; 6BrainWatch Ltd., Tel-Aviv, Israel


Choline metabolism is known to be altered in neurodegeneration and malignancy. In order to enable the monitoring of choline metabolism in a direct and non-invasive manner in vivo, a stable-isotope labeled analog of choline namely, [1,1,2,2-D4,2-13C]-choline chloride, was designed and implemented for hyperpolarized magnetic resonance applications. The position enriched with 13C in this molecule presents with both a long T1 (35 sec) and a chemical shift that differentiates choline from its metabolites. Here we report on the first in vivo studies of carbon-13 hyperpolarized [1,1,2,2-D4,2-13C]-choline that suggest it is a promising new agent for metabolic imaging by MRI and MRSI.