Abstract
Most cancers, including glioblastomas (GBMs), rely extensively on glycolysis to support growth, proliferation, and survival. A hallmark of this elevated glycolysis is overexpression of Lactate dehydrogenase-A (LDHA) protein leading to increased uptake of glucose and overproduction of lactate. Various clinical trials using LDHA as a target for diagnosis and treatment have yielded encouraging results. However, in vivo monitoring of LDHA expression has been challenging due to either requirement of administration of radioactive substrates or specialized hardware. In this presentation, we will demonstrate a new method-quantitative exchanged-label turnover MRS (QELT, or simply qMRS)-that increases the sensitivity of magnetic resonance-based metabolic mapping without the requirement for specialized hardware. qMRS relies on the administration of deuterated (2H-labeled) substrates to track the production of downstream metabolites. Since 2H is invisible on 1H MRS, replacement of 1H with 2H due to metabolic turnover leads to an overall reduction in 1H MRS signal for the corresponding metabolites. We applied our qMRS technique to monitor the rate of lactate production in a preclinical GBM model. Infusion of [6,6’-2H2]glucose led to downstream deuterium labeling of lactate, thereby resulting in a reduction in the 1.33 ppm lactate-CH3 peak on 1H MRS over time. The subtraction of post-administration 1H MR spectra from the pre-infusion spectra aided in the determination of the kinetics of the lactate turnover. We believe that the detection and quantification of lactate production kinetics may provide crucial information regarding tumor LDHA expression non-invasively in GBMs without requiring biopsies. Hence, qMRS is expected to open up new opportunities to probe LDHA expression differences in a variety of gliomas, including GBMs and astrocytomas. This method takes advantage of the universal availability and ease of implementation of 1H MRS on all clinical and preclinical magnetic resonance scanners.
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