Metabolic contrast agents produced from transported solid ¹³C-glucose hyperpolarized via dynamic nuclear polarization

Magnetic Resonance Imaging combined with hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents produced via dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization can, non-invasively and in real-time, report on tissue specific aberrant metabolism. However, hyperpolarization equipment is expensive, technically demanding and needs to be installed on-site for the end-user.

In this work, we provide a robust methodology that allows remote production of the hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents. The methodology, built on photo-induced thermally labile radicals, allows solid sample extraction from the hyperpolarization equipment and several hours' lifetime of the 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents at appropriate storage/transport conditions.

Exemplified with [U-13C, d7]-D-glucose, we remotely produce hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents and generate above 10,000-fold liquid-state Magnetic Resonance signal enhancement at 9.4 T, keeping on-site only a simple dissolution device. Hyperpolarized metabolic contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging can provide non-invasive and realtime information on tissue specific aberrant metabolism, but producing and handling them is highly demanding because of their short lifetime.

Here a solid sample extraction, storage, and transport technique allows disconnecting production from end-user sites handling, as well as hour-long lifetimes of the agents.