In this initial work, the in vivo degradation of 17 O-labeled glucose was studied during cellular glycolysis. To monitor cellular glucose metabolism, direct 17 O-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used in the mouse brain at 9.4 T. Non-localized spectra were acquired with a custom-built transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) two-turn surface coil and a free induction decay (FID) sequence with a short TR of 5.4 ms. The dynamics of labeled oxygen in the anomeric 1-OH and 6-CH2 OH groups was detected using a Hankel-Lanczos singular value decomposition (HLSVD) algorithm for water suppression. Time-resolved 17 O-MRS (temporal resolution, 42/10.5 s) was performed in 10 anesthetized (1.25% isoflurane) mice after injection of a 2.2 M solution containing 2.5 mg/g body weight of differently labeled 17 O-glucose dissolved in 0.9% physiological saline. From a pharmacokinetic model fit of the H217 O concentration-time course, a mean apparent cerebral metabolic rate of 17 O-labeled glucose in mouse brain of CMRGlc = 0.07 ± 0.02 μmol/g/min was extracted, which is of the same order of magnitude as a literature value of 0.26 ± 0.06 μmol/g/min reported by 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18 F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). In addition, we studied the chemical exchange kinetics of aqueous solutions of 17 O-labeled glucose at the C1 and C6 positions with dynamic 17 O-MRS. In conclusion, the results of the exchange and in vivo experiments demonstrate that the C6-17 OH label in the 6-CH2 OH group is transformed only glycolytically by the enzyme enolase into the metabolic end-product H217 O, whereas C1-17 OH ends up in water via direct hydrolysis as well as glycolysis. Therefore, dynamic 17 O-MRS of highly labeled 17 O-glucose could provide a valuable non-radioactive alternative to FDG PET in order to investigate glucose metabolism.
Keywords: 17O-MRS; cerebral rate of glucose consumption (CMRGlc); chemical exchange kinetics; glucose metabolism; glycolysis; non-proton MRS.
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