Daniel Ball1, Marie Schroeder1,
George Radda1, Kieran Clarke1, Damian Tyler1
1Department of Physiology,
Anatomy and Genetics,
Hyperpolarized 13C-pyruvate is widely used in assessing cardiac metabolism in the perfused rat heart. Typically large concentrations are infused (~2mM) when compared to physiological levels (~60M). This is done to achieve sufficient signal-to-noise in the acquired spectra. Given that pyruvate is used as a real-time measure of enzymatic flux, it is important to understand the effect of high pyruvate concentrations on the kinetics observed. The aim of this study was to assess varying concentrations of pyruvate to determine when enzyme kinetics become unrepresentative of the physiological state and to find a suitable compromise between high signal and accurate metabolic assessment.