Rahwa Berhanu Iman1, Mark Swanson1, Thomas Walsh2, David Aaronson2, Shoujun Zhao, Ying Lu, John Kurhanewicz1
1Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Urology, University of California, San Francisco
1H high resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) spectroscopy was used to determine metabolic profiles of normal, maturation arrested, and azoospermatic human testicular biopsy tissues. Twenty seven 1H HR-MAS spectra were acquired and quantified using the electronic standard ERETIC and the algorithm HR-QUEST. Phosphocholine (PC), phosphoethanolamine (PE), and glutamine were found to significantly differentiate between normal and azoospermatic tissue. This study further suggests that PC could serve as a specific in vivo marker for fertility in 1H MRSI studies of human testes and a model can be used to predict fertility of maturation arrested men.