In vivo measurement of aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 activity in rat liver ethanol model using dynamic MRSI of hyperpolarized [1-(13) C]pyruvate.

To date, measurements of the activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2), a critical mitochondrial enzyme for the elimination of certain cytotoxic aldehydes in the body and a promising target for drug development, have been largely limited to in vitro methods. Recent advancements in MRS of hyperpolarized (13) C-labeled substrates have provided a method to detect and image in vivo metabolic pathways with signal-to-noise ratio gains greater than 10 000-fold over conventional MRS techniques. However aldehydes, because of their toxicity and short T1 relaxation times, are generally poor targets for such (13) C-labeled studies. In this work, we show that dynamic MRSI of hyperpolarized [1-(13) C]pyruvate and its conversion to [1-(13) C]lactate can provide an indirect in vivo measurement of ALDH2 activity via the concentration of NADH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, reduced form), a co-factor common to both the reduction of pyruvate to lactate and the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetate. Results from a rat liver ethanol model (n = 9) show that changes in (13) C-lactate labeling following the bolus injection of hyperpolarized pyruvate are highly correlated with changes in ALDH2 activity (R(2) = 0.76).