Effects of fish oil on phospholipid metabolism in human and rat liver studied by 31P NMR spectroscopy in vivo and in vitro

In-vivo31P-MRS of skeletal muscle and liver: A way for non-invasive assessment of their metabolism

In addition to direct assessment of high energy phosphorus containing metabolite content within tissues, phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (³¹P-MRS) provides options to measure phospholipid metabolites and cellular pH, as well as the kinetics of chemical reactions of energy metabolism in vivo. Even though the great potential of ³¹P-MR was recognized over 30 years ago, modern MR systems, as well as new, dedicated hardware and measurement techniques provide further opportunities for research of human biochemistry. This paper presents a methodological overview of the ³¹P-MR techniques that can be used for basic, physiological, or clinical research of human skeletal muscle and liver in vivo. Practical issues of ³¹P-MRS experiments and examples of potential applications are also provided. As signal localization is essential for liver ³¹P-MRS and is important for dynamic muscle examinations as well, typical localization strategies for ³¹P-MR are also described.

Phosphatidylcholine contributes to in vivo (31)P MRS signal from the human liver

OBJECTIVES

To demonstrate the overlap of the hepatic and bile phosphorus ((31)P) magnetic resonance (MR) spectra and provide evidence of phosphatidylcholine (PtdC) contribution to the in vivo hepatic (31)P MRS phosphodiester (PDE) signal, suggested in previous reports to be phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP).

METHODS

Phantom measurements to assess the chemical shifts of PEP and PtdC signals were performed at 7 T. A retrospective analysis of hepatic 3D (31)P MR spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) data from 18 and five volunteers at 3 T and 7 T, respectively, was performed. Axial images were inspected for the presence of gallbladder, and PDE signals in representative spectra were quantified.

RESULTS

Phantom experiments demonstrated the strong pH-dependence of the PEP chemical shift and proved the overlap of PtdC and PEP (~2 ppm relative to phosphocreatine) at hepatic pH. Gallbladder was covered in seven of 23 in vivo 3D-MRSI datasets. The PDE(gall)/γ-ATP(liver) ratio was 4.8-fold higher (p = 0.001) in the gallbladder (PDE(gall)/γ-ATP(liver) = 3.61 ± 0.79) than in the liver (PDE(liver)/γ-ATP(liver) = 0.75 ± 0.15). In vivo 7 T (31)P MRSI allowed good separation of PDE components. The gallbladder is a strong source of contamination in adjacent (31)P MR hepatic spectra due to biliary phosphatidylcholine.

CONCLUSIONS

In vivo (31)P MR hepatic signal at 2.06 ppm may represent both phosphatidylcholine and phosphoenolpyruvate, with a higher phosphatidylcholine contribution due to its higher concentration.

KEY POINTS

• In vivo (31)P MRS from the gallbladder shows a dominant biliary phosphatidylcholine signal at 2.06 ppm. • Intrahepatic (31)P MRS signal at 2.06 ppm may represent both intrahepatic phosphatidylcholine and phosphoenolpyruvate. • In vivo (31)P MRS has the potential to monitor hepatic phosphatidylcholine.

In vivo (31)P magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the human liver at 7 T: an initial experience

Phosphorus ((31) P) MRS is a powerful tool for the non-invasive investigation of human liver metabolism. Four in vivo (31) P localization approaches (single voxel image selected in vivo spectroscopy (3D-ISIS), slab selective 1D-ISIS, 2D chemical shift imaging (CSI), and 3D-CSI) with different voxel volumes and acquisition times were demonstrated in nine healthy volunteers. Localization techniques provided comparable signal-to-noise ratios normalized for voxel volume and acquisition time differences, Cramer-Rao lower bounds (8.7 ± 3.3%1D-ISIS , 7.6 ± 2.5%3D-ISIS , 8.6 ± 4.2%2D-CSI , 10.3 ± 2.7%3D-CSI ), and linewidths (50 ± 24 Hz1D-ISIS , 34 ± 10 Hz3D-ISIS , 33 ± 10 Hz2D-CSI , 34 ± 11 Hz3D-CSI ). Longitudinal (T1 ) relaxation times of human liver metabolites at 7 T were assessed by 1D-ISIS inversion recovery in the same volunteers (n = 9). T1 relaxation times of hepatic (31) P metabolites at 7 T were the following: phosphorylethanolamine - 4.41 ± 1.55 s; phosphorylcholine - 3.74 ± 1.31 s; inorganic phosphate - 0.70 ± 0.33 s; glycerol 3-phosphorylethanolamine - 6.19 ± 0.91 s; glycerol 3-phosphorylcholine - 5.94 ± 0.73 s; γ-adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - 0.50 ± 0.08 s; α-ATP - 0.46 ± 0.07 s; β-ATP - 0.56 ± 0.07 s. The improved spectral resolution at 7 T enabled separation of resonances in the phosphomonoester and phosphodiester spectral region as well as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and uridine diphosphoglucose signals. An additional resonance at 2.06 ppm previously assigned to phosphoenolpyruvate or phosphatidylcholine is also detectable. These are the first (31) P metabolite relaxation time measurements at 7 T in human liver, and they will help in the exploration of new, exciting questions in metabolic research with 7 T MR.

Parametric exploration of the liver by magnetic resonance methods

MRI, as a completely noninvasive technique, can provide quantitative assessment of perfusion, diffusion, viscoelasticity and metabolism, yielding diverse information about liver function. Furthermore, pathological accumulations of iron and lipids can be quantified. Perfusion MRI with various contrast agents is commonly used for the detection and characterization of focal liver disease and the quantification of blood flow parameters. An extended new application is the evaluation of the therapeutic effect of antiangiogenic drugs on liver tumours. Novel, but already widespread, is a histologically validated relaxometry method using five gradient echo sequences for quantifying liver iron content elevation, a measure of inflammation, liver disease and cancer. Because of the high perfusion fraction in the liver, the apparent diffusion coefficients strongly depend on the gradient factors used in diffusion-weighted MRI. While complicating analysis, this offers the opportunity to study perfusion without contrast injection. Another novel method, MR elastography, has already been established as the only technique able to stage fibrosis or diagnose mild disease. Liver fat content is accurately determined with multivoxel MR spectroscopy (MRS) or by faster MRI methods that are, despite their widespread use, prone to systematic error. Focal liver disease characterisation will be of great benefit once multivoxel methods with fat suppression are implemented in proton MRS, in particular on high-field MR systems providing gains in signal-to-noise ratio and spectral resolution.

Metabolic Profiling of Liver from Hypercholesterolemic Pigs Fed Rye or Wheat Fiber and from Normal Pigs. High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning1H NMR Spectroscopic Study

This study presents the first application of a high-resolution magic angle spinning 1H NMR approach to elucidate the metabolic effects of a hypercholesterolemic condition and two high-fiber diets based on rye and wheat bread, respectively, in intact pig liver biopsy samples. Standard 1D and spin-echo 1H spectra were acquired on a total of 20 biopsy samples, and 2D total correlation spectroscopy experiments were carried out on selected samples for assignment of the observed resonances. Principal component analyses and partial least-squares regression discriminant analysis revealed differences in the hepatic lipid content and choline-containing compounds between normal and hypercholesterolemic pigs. In addition, the results demonstrated that the liver metabolite profile of hypercholesterolemic pigs fed a high-fiber rye bread differed from that of pigs fed high-fiber wheat bread with respect to both the lipoprotein fractions and the choline-containing compounds. These findings suggest that earlier reports on high-fiber rye diet-induced effects on plasma HDL/LDL content partially can be ascribed to effects on liver cholesterol metabolism and that the hepatic phospholipase pathways of phosphatidylcholine breakdown are affected by the high-fiber rye diet.

31P NMR measurements of the effects of unsaturated fatty acids on cellular phospholipid metabolism

31P NMR measurements on extracts prepared from a variety of cultured mammalian cell lines and primary rat hepatocytes have shown changes in the levels of several phospholipid metabolites after incubation of cells with unsaturated fatty acids. These data suggest a possible link between the accumulation of neutral lipid and the changes in phospholipid metabolite concentrations that have been observed in some tumor cells and other rapidly growing tissues such as the regenerating liver and mitogen-stimulated lymphocytes.

Non-T1-weighted 31P chemical shift imaging of the human liver

A 31P chemical shift imaging (CSI) protocol was developed for human liver studies. It is shown that at the commonly used repetition time (TR) of 1 s T1-weighting reduces the integrated intensities of liver phosphate metabolite signals by 18 +/- 15% (inorganic phosphate, Pi) to 46 +/- 10% (phosphodiester, PDE), that is for an RF pulse angle of 60 degrees (weighted average) in liver. The loss in signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) at TR = 20 s, sufficient to eliminate spectral distortions caused by saturation, compared with TR = 1 s (47-65%) can be overcome by using one-dimensional (1D)-phase encoding with a small number of phase-encode steps. The liver spectra obtained by 1D-CSI with 4-step phase-encoding (spatial resolution 10 cm) have the highest S/N and, after multiplication of the PDE signal by a factor of 1.4, closely reflect the liver metabolite levels. It is concluded that clinical 31P MR studies of liver function can be performed without T1-weighting and that the current practice to compromise the MRS quantification of lever metabolites with uncertainties caused by (differential changes in) T1-weighting is not warranted.

Effect of fish oil on cancer cachexia and host liver metabolism in rats with prostate tumors

The aim of this study was to investigate whether tumor-induced cachexia and aberrations in host liver metabolism, induced by the MAT-LyLu variant of the Dunning prostate tumor, could be prevented by omega 3 fatty acids from fish oil. On day 0, adult Copenhagen-Fisher rats fed normal chow ad libitum were inoculated with 10(6) MAT-LyLu cells (n = 14) or saline (n = 9). On day 7, when tumors were palpable, four tumor-bearing (TB) and four nontumor-bearing (NTB) rats were put on isocaloric diets with 50% of total energy as fish oil. The introduction of fish oil-enriched diets caused a reduction in energy intake to less than half of the energy intake by animals fed normal diets during days 7-14 (difference by dietary group: NTB, P < 0.001; TB, P < 0.001). During days 14-21, energy intake in fish oil-fed animals returned to approximately 75% of energy intake by animals fed normal diets (difference by dietary group: NTB, P < 0.003; TB, P = 0.001). Carcass weight of animals on day 21, when the study was terminated, was significantly related to initial weight (P = 0.05) and mean food intake during the study (P = 0.01). When data were adjusted for these variables using analysis of covariance, with NTB animals on normal diets being the reference group, significant loss of carcass weight was observed in TB animals on normal diets only (mean +/- SEM 58 +/- 10 g loss, P < 0.001), but not in TB animals on fish oil diets (8 +/- 18 g loss, P = 0.67).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)