Spatially Localized Two-Dimensional J-Resolved NMR Spectroscopy via Intermolecular Double-Quantum Coherences for Biological Samples at 7 T

High-resolution two-dimensional 1H J-resolved MRS measurements on in vivo samples

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) provides a noninvasive tool for metabolite characterization of in vivo biological samples. Conventional MRS measurements on biological samples generally suffer from field inhomogeneity caused by intrinsic magnetic susceptibility variations inside samples. Compared to one-dimensional MRS, two-dimensional (2D) J-resolved spectroscopy enables resolving J couplings along one of the spectral dimension and benefits to metabolite identification and analyses. Intermolecular double-quantum coherences (iDQC) has been proven to be insensitive to magnetic field inhomogeneity, herein we propose a MRS approach based on iDQC evolution and optimal echo sampling scheme to achieve high-resolution 2D J-resolved measurements on biological samples. The applicability of the proposed method is evaluated with experiments on an ex vivo pig brain tissue and an in vivo rat brain tissue. Compared to conventional MRS method which is sensitive to field inhomogeneity inside investigated biological tissues, the proposed method holds immunity to this field inhomogeneity and the quality of resulting spectra may not be influenced by localized voxel size variation. The signal to noise ratio enhancement of the proposed method benefitting from the optimal echo signal sampling is verified with a solution experiment. The new method provides a promising way for high-resolution MRS measurements on biological samples. In combination with fast acquisition strategy, it may find some promising biomedical applications.

Current developments in homonuclear and heteronuclear J-resolved NMR experiments

Two-dimensional J-resolved (Jres) NMR experiments offer a simple, user-friendly spectral representation where the information of coupling constants and chemical shifts are separated into two orthogonal frequency axis. Since its initial proposal 40 years ago, Jres has been the focus of considerable interest both in improving the basic pulse sequence and in its successful application to a wide range of studies. Here, the latest developments in the design of novel Jres pulse schemes are reviewed, mainly focusing on obtaining pure absorption lineshapes, minimizing strong coupling artifacts, and also optimizing sensitivity and experimental measurements. A discussion of several Jres versions for the accurate measurement of a different number of homonuclear (J_HH ) and heteronuclear (J_CH ) coupling constants is presented, accompanied by some illustrative examples.

Single-Scan High-Resolution 2-D $J$ -Resolved Spectroscopy in Inhomogeneous Magnetic Fields

OBJECTIVE

A method is proposed to obtain high-resolution 2-D -resolved nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra in inhomogeneous magnetic fields.

METHODS

The proposed experiment enables the acquisition of an entire 2-D spectrum in a single scan by utilizing intermolecular double-quantum coherences and the spatial encoding of NMR observables.

RESULTS

Chemical shifts, coupling constants, and multiplet patterns are recovered even when field inhomogeneities are severe enough to completely obscure conventional NMR spectra. After intentional deshimming to yield inhomogeneous magnetic fields, the method was demonstrated on ethyl 3-bromoproprionate in acetone and on a complex mixture of organic compounds. To illustrate the technique's applicability to biological samples with intrinsic magnetic field inhomogeneities arising from macroscopic magnetic susceptibility variations, we performed the experiment on a pig bone marrow sample.

CONCLUSION

Our results show that the new method is a fast and effective tool for studying complex chemical mixtures and biological tissues.

SIGNIFICANCE

The method could potentially be useful for real-time in vivo NMR studies.