Novel Structure-guided Design of Amino Acid based Hyperpolarized 13C Probes for Metabolic Imaging

Profiling the metabolic phenotypes of tumors by molecular imaging is a promising approach in treatment planning and response monitoring. Here, dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (dDNP) is an emerging technique to detect site-specific enzymatic activities noninvasively. While drastic dDNP sensitivity enhancements are advantageous for real-time measurements, the limited number of applicable probes with longer T1 relaxation times continues to be a major drawback particularly for in vivo use. In this presentation, we will demonstrate a framework to design novel dDNP probes, detecting APN enzymatic activities which is a cancer therapeutic target, and its applications to in vivo pancreatic cancer.