{"doi":"10.1002/jmri.27677","title":"In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of Hyperpolarized [ <scp> 1‐ <sup>13</sup> C </scp> ]Pyruvate and Proton Density Fat Fraction in a Guinea Pig Model of Non‐Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Development After Life‐Long Western Diet Consumption","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Alterations in glycolysis are central to the increasing incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), highlighting a need for in vivo, non-invasive technologies to understand the development of hepatic metabolic aberrations. PURPOSE: To use hyperpolarized magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to investigate the effects of a chronic, life-long exposure to the Western diet (WD) in an animal model resulting in NAFLD; to investigate the hypothesis that exposure to the WD will result in NAFLD in association with altered pyruvate metabolism. STUDY TYPE: Prospective. ANIMAL MODEL: Twenty-eight male guinea pigs weaned onto a control diet (N = 14) or WD (N = 14). FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 3 T; T1-weighted gradient echo, T2-weighted spin-echo, three-dimensional gradient multi-echo fat-water separation (IDEAL-IQ), and broadband point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) chemical-shift sequences. ASSESSMENT: C]pyruvate dynamic MRS in the liver was quantified by the time-to-peak (TTP) for each metabolite. Animals were euthanized and tissue was analyzed for lipid and cholesterol concentration and enzyme level and activity. STATISTICAL TESTS: Unpaired Student's t-tests were used to determine differences in measurements between the two diet groups. The Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to determine correlations between measurements. RESULTS: Life-long WD consumption resulted in significantly higher liver PDFF and elevated triglyceride content in the liver. The WD group exhibited a decreased TTP for lactate production, and ex vivo analysis highlighted increased liver lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. DATA CONCLUSION: PDFF MRI results suggest differential fat deposition patterns occurring in animals fed a life-long WD characteristic of lean, or lacking excessive subcutaneous fat, NAFLD. The decreased liver lactate TTP and increased ex vivo LDH activity suggest lipid accumulation occurs in association with a shift from oxidative metabolism to anaerobic glycolytic metabolism in WD-exposed livers. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 1.","journal":"Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging","year":2021,"id":199107,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9391,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":775565,"name":"Conrad B. Pitts","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775006,"name":"Lanette J. Friesen‐Waldner","orcid":"0000-0001-9812-9766","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775007,"name":"Neetin Prabhu","orcid":"0000-0002-3882-5281","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":428013,"name":"Katherine E. Mathers","orcid":"0000-0002-0356-7972","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775008,"name":"Kevin J. Sinclair","orcid":"0000-0002-5203-7484","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775009,"name":"Trevor Wade","orcid":"0000-0003-1343-7263","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334955,"name":"Timothy R.H. Regnault","orcid":"0000-0003-1930-8358","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":353281,"name":"Charles A. McKenzie","orcid":"0000-0002-9614-1582","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":514952,"name":"Lauren Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-5585-966X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:36.595945Z","pmid":"33970520","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}