Capozzi, Andrea, Jan Kilund, Magnus Karlsson, Saket Patel, Arthur Cesar Pinon, François Vibert, Olivier Ouari, Mathilde H. Lerche, and Jan Henrik Ardenkjær-Larsen. “Metabolic Contrast Agents Produced from Transported Solid 13C-Glucose Hyperpolarized via Dynamic Nuclear Polarization.” Communications Chemistry 4, no. 1 (December 2021): 95.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-021-00536-9.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging combined with hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents produced via dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization can, non-invasively and in real-time, report on tissue specific aberrant metabolism. However, hyperpolarization equipment is expensive, technically demanding and needs to be installed on-site for the end-user. In this work, we provide a robust methodology that allows remote production of the hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents. The methodology, built on photo-induced thermally labile radicals, allows solid sample extraction from the hyperpolarization equipment and several hours’ lifetime of the 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents at appropriate storage/transport conditions. Exemplified with [U-13C, d7]-D-glucose, we remotely produce hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents and generate above 10,000-fold liquid-state Magnetic Resonance signal enhancement at 9.4 T, keeping on-site only a simple dissolution device.