Ming Lu1,2, Jessica Spires1,
Gheorghe D. Mateescu2,3, Chris Flask2,4, Xin Yu1,2
1Biomedical Engineering, Case Western
Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States; 2Case Center for
Imaging Research, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United
States; 3Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University; 4Radiology,
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States
Cardiac
applications of 17O NMR for evaluating mitochondrial function have
been limited due to the challenge of detecting metabolic H217O
in the vast background of natural abundance H217O. In
this study, we developed a direct 17O MR Spectroscopy (MRS)
approach to examine the feasibility and sensitivity of detecting
metabolically produced H217O in isolated rat hearts
perfused with 17O2-enriched Krebs buffer. Mitochondrial
production of H217O was monitored by dynamic 17O
spectroscopy. Oxygen consumption rate (MVO2) was determined by
least-square fitting of a compartmental model to NMR data. An increase of MVO2
was observed under elevated workload induced by high Ca2+
concentration.