NMR measurement of 39K detectability and relaxation constants in rat tissue

✍ Scribed by R. Mark Wellard; B. Philip Shehan; William R. Adam; David J. Craik

• Book ID: 102954643
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 920 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910290113

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Differences in the NMR detectability of ^39^K in various excised rat tissues (liver, brain, kidney, muscle, and testes) have been observed. The lowest NMR detectability occurs for liver (61 ± 3% of potassium as measured by flame photometry) and highest for erythrocytes (100 ± 7%). These differences in detectability correlate with differences in the measured ^39^K NMR relaxation constants in the same tissues. ^39^K detectabilities were also found to correlate inversely with the mitochondrial content of the tissues. Mitochondria prepared from liver showed greatly reduced ^39^K NMR detectability when compared with the tissue from which it was derived, 31.6 ± 9% of potassium measured by flame photometry compared to 61 ± 3%. The detectability of potassium in mitochondria was too low to enable the measurement of relaxation constants. This study indicates that differences in tissue structure, particularly mitochondrial content are important in determining ^39^K detectability and measured relaxation rates.