Alterations in cardiac metabolism are associated with a variety of cardiomyopathies and often form the basis of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms1. However, there are numerous obstacles to studying metabolism in living tissues, as most biochemical assays require the homogenization of the tissue and cell lysis and/or radioactive tracing. Therefore, there is a pressing need for new tools to investigate myocardial metabolism in living tissues. Magnetic resonance (MR) of hyperpolarized 13C-labeled substrates allows for real-time measurements of metabolism in living tissues2, without the use of ionizing radiation, by increasing the MR signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio of the labeled site(s) by several orders of magnitude3. Here, we describe an experimental setup, an acquisition approach, and an analytical approach for studying the rapid metabolism in the isolated mouse heart and, in parallel, present indicators of general tissue energetics and acidity. The cardiac pH is a valuable indicator, as the acid-base balance is disrupted in the early stages of cardiac diseases and conditions such as myocardial ischemia, maladaptive hypertrophy, and heart failure6.
Hyperpolarized [1-13C]lactate and [13C]bicarbonate production from hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate helps in determining the production rates of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). Most of the previous studies performed using hyperpolarized substrates in the isolated rodent heart either used complex kinetic models to derive the enzymatic activity of LDH and PDH, or reported the signal intensity ratios of the hyperpolarized product to a substrate without calculating the actual enzyme activity rates2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14. Here, we used the product selective saturating-excitations approach15, which allows for the monitoring of the enzyme activity in a model-free manner15,16. In this way, the absolute enzymatic rates (i.e., the number of moles of product produced per unit of time) were determined. 31P spectroscopy was utilized to observe the signals of inorganic phosphate (Pi), phosphocreatine (PCr), and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). A multi-parametric analysis was used to characterize the pH distribution of the heart, as demonstrated by the heterogeneous chemical shift in the Pi signal of the tissue.
The retrogradely perfused mouse heart (Langendorff heart)17,18,19 is an ex vivo model for the intact beating heart. In this model, the heart viability and pH are preserved for at least 80 min20, and it has shown potential for recovery following a prolonged ischemic injury21,22. Nevertheless, inadvertent variability during micro-surgery may lead to variability in the tissue viability across hearts. Previous studies have reported on the deterioration of this heart over time19; for example, a reduction in contractile function of 5%-10% per hour has been observed18. The adenosine triphosphate (ATP) signal has previously been shown to report on the myocardial energetic status and viability23. Here, we noted that the perfused heart may occasionally show unintentional variability in viability levels, as demonstrated by the ATP content, despite the fact that we had an uninterrupted perfusion and oxygen supply. We demonstrate here that normalizing the LDH and PDH rates to the ATP content of the heart reduces the inter-heart variability in these rates.
In the following protocol, we describe the surgical procedure used for heart cannulation, isolation, and consequent perfusion in the NMR spectrometer. Of note, other surgical approaches aimed at isolating and perfusing the mouse heart have been described before24,25.
The methodologies used for acquiring data related to enzymatic rates in the beating heart (using 13C spectroscopy and hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate) and the heart's viability and acidity (using 31P NMR spectroscopy) are described as well. Finally, the analytical methodologies for determining metabolic enzyme activities and tissue viability and acidity are explained.