Victor D. Schepkin1, Thomas Morgan2, Fabian Calixto-Bejarano3, Petr L. Gor'kov3, William Brey3, Chunqi Qian4, Shannon Gower-Winter5, Manuel Ozambela2, Cathy Levenson2
1CIMAR/MRI, NHMFL/FSU, Tallahassee, FL, United States; 2College of Medicine, FSU, Tallahassee, FL, United States; 3CIMAR/NMR, NHMFL/FSU, Tallahassee, FL, United States; 4NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States; 5College of Medicine, FSU, Tallahassee, United States
During cancer progression, tumors develop mechanisms permitting them to obstruct chemotherapeutic interventions. To formulate individualized treatments it is important to provide a prompt and noninvasive assessment of tumor resistance. Mitochondria play a central role in ATP production, apoptosis and are associated with changes in tumor resistance. We hypothesize that the energy metabolism shift due to increased tumor resistance can affect sodium homeostasis, and MRI has the potential to reflect changes in tumor resistance. The results demonstrate that alterations in tumor resistance can be detected prior to treatment by sodium and diffusion MRI, allowing individualized adjustments to prevent ineffective treatments