Inclusion of a pH electrode allows online monitoring of the hyperpolarized substrate during the dissolution process to provide selleckchem additional animal safety. A glass pH electrode can take up to 30 s to attain a stable value, although an approximate value can be measured within a few seconds. Because of this, using the built in pH monitor introduced a few seconds delay to the injection and so was not always used. The delay between dissolution and injection has been minimized by using a peristaltic pump to remove the syringe filling delay required for a previous automated injector design [6]. The reduction of dead time from dissolution to start of the injection

is a key factor in the 13C MR studies of hyperpolarized substrates. Saving 1–5 s, depending on the required syringe filling volume, can be an important improvement in terms of experimental sensitivity. Moreover, automation of a combined polarizer and injection system, as seen in the in vitro results, can produce a very high degree of consistency in the level of the hyperpolarized signal by fixing the timing and dose of the substrate. The T1 of hyperpolarized pyruvate has been shown to

be highly dependent on magnetic field strength [12] thus affecting the observed level of signal. The injection system can be reproducibly positioned next to the magnet such that the sample experiences a well-defined magnetic field path during transfer from the polarizer. In principle the observed IWR-1 nmr in vivo signal can be corrected for timing differences using T1. However, in vivo values of T1 have been published in the range 18–31 s [13] and [14], making this method potentially inaccurate. Provided that the injection cannula was consistently positioned with respect to the surface coil, the level of hyperpolarized signal between injections Decitabine research buy could be measured to assess reproducibility. Combining this measurement with a reference

phantom signal would allow the polarization to be calculated. Measuring the hyperpolarized signal in the cannula would cause a reduction of the signal acquired from the animal. However, this measurement could be delayed until after the substrate had been fully administered. When the injection system was used in vivo, the 13C MR signal could be first detected within the tissue of interest 8–12 s after transfer of hyperpolarized pyruvate from the polarizer, minimizing hyperpolarization loss and therefore improving the available signal. Variations in the appearance time of the 13C signal in the tumor are most likely caused by differing blood circulation times and tumor vascularity between animals. By using a fully programmable microcontroller, the operation of the injector can be customized to the user’s needs.