Noninvasive rapid detection of metabolic adaptation in activated human T lymphocytes by hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance

The metabolic shift induced in human CD4+ T lymphocytes by stimulation is characterized by an upregulation of glycolysis, leading to an augmentation in lactate production. This adaptation has already been highlighted with various techniques and reported in several previous studies. We herein propose a method to rapidly and noninvasively detect the associated increase in flux from pyruvate to lactate catalyzed by lactate dehydrogenase using hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance, a technique which can be used for in vivo imaging. It was shown that the conversion of hyperpolarized 13C-pyruvate to 13C-lactate during the one-minute measurement increased by a mean factor of 3.6 in T cells stimulated for 5 days as compared to resting T cells. This method can be extended to other metabolic substrates and is therefore a powerful tool to noninvasively analyze T cell metabolism, possibly in vivo.