MT and CEST MRI of in vitro gastric protein digestion

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Gastric digestion of dietary protein is commonly studied using in vitro digestion models, which need to be verified with in vivo data. Here, we used MT and CEST MRI to monitor in vitro gastric digestion of milk proteins. We show that MT and CEST measurements can be used to monitor the breakdown of the initially-formed semi-solid protein coagulum and hydrolysis of soluble proteins. We also demonstrate that RF-based ratiometric CEST analysis can be used for pH mapping in both acid- and base-catalyzed regions. Our results open the way to quantification of in vivo protein digestion with the use of MRI.