Mamone, Salvatore, Anil P. Jagtap, Sergey Korchak, Yonghong Ding, Sonja Sternkopf, and Stefan Glöggler. “A Field‐Independent Method for the Rapid Generation of Hyperpolarized [1‐13C]Pyruvate in Clean Water Solutions for Biomedical Applications.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition 61, no. 34 (August 22, 2022).
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202206298.
Hyperpolarization methods in magnetic resonance enhance the signals by several orders of magnitude, opening new windows for real-time investigations of dynamic processes in vitro and in vivo. Here, we propose a field-independent para-hydrogen-based pulsed method to produce rapidly hyperpolarized 13Clabeled substrates. We demonstrate the method by polarizing the carboxylic carbon of the pyruvate moiety in a purposely designed precursor to 24 % at � 22 mT. Following a fast purification procedure, we measure 8 % polarization on free [1-13C]pyruvate in clean water solutions at physiological conditions at 7 T. The enhanced signals allow real-time monitoring of the pyruvate-lactate conversion in cancer cells, demonstrating the potential of the method for biomedical applications in combination with existing or developing magnetic resonance technologies.