A Relationship Between Hyperpolarized 13C Pyruvate Metabolism and Tumour Volume in a Chronic Study of Oral Dichloroacetate Treatment of P22 Bearing BDIX Rat

Steven Reynolds¹, Tooba Alizadeh², Becky Bibby², Matthew Fisher², Adriana Bucur¹, Samira Kazan², Martyn Paley¹, Gillian M. Tozer²

There has been recent interest in using hyperpolarised ¹³C₁-pyruvate for studying cancer metabolism. The methodology has been used to study the effect of dichloroacetate (DCA) on tumour metabolism which disrupts pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK). However, these studies have been acute treatments up to 24h. In this study we examine the effect of chronic oral DCA dosing on P22 bearing BDIX rats over 17 days. The data showed a strong negative linear correlation between conversion of pyruvate to lactate and tumour volume and that there was a significant difference in the slope of the correlation between control and DCA treated rats.