Abstract #0019

Quantitative Assessment of Mitochondrial Metabolic Efficiency by 17O & 31P MR Spectroscopy in Isolated Rat Hearts

Bharath Atthe^{1, 2}, Mary Kemerer^{1, 2}, Ya Chen^{1, 2}, Ming Lu^{1, 2}, Gheorghe Mateescu^{2, 3}, Chris Flask^{2, 3}, Xin Yu^{1, 2}

¹Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA; ²Case Center for Imaging Research, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA; ³Radiology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA

In this study, we investigated the potential of combining ¹⁷O spectroscopy (¹⁷O-MRS) and ³¹P magnetization transfer (³¹P-MT) method for evaluating metabolic efficiency in perfused hearts. ATP synthesis rate was determined from ³¹P-MT experiments, while mitochondrial oxidation was quantified by the rate of H₂¹⁷O production. 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) was used to induce the uncoupling of mitochondrial oxidation and phosphorylation. Our results suggest that the ratio of ATP synthesis measured by ³¹P-MT to mitochondrial H₂¹⁷O production quantified by ¹⁷O-MRS can be used as an indicator of metabolic efficiency.