Spectroscopy of Intracellularly Located $%{133}Cs$ Has Been Used to Monitor the Uptake of the Isolated Rat Liver

MR spectroscopy of intracellularly located $^{133}Cs$ has been used to monitor the uptake of Gd-EOB-DTPA by the isolated rat liver. As shown by ${31}P$ spectroscopy, accumulation of $^{133}Cs$ ions in hepatocytes does not produce detectable effects on the metabolism. The hepatic internalization of Gd-EOB-DTPA was followed by the paramagnetic relaxation enhancement of the intracellular $^{133}Cs$ ions, and confirmed by parallel quantitations of Gd and Cs run by inductively coupled plasma analysis of liver samples and aliquots of perfusate. Two peaks are observed at -22.0 and -23.5 ppm, with respect to the line of the external reference arbitarily set to 0 ppm. Upon rinsing of the extracellular compartment with regular K-H free of CsCl, the high-field resonance disappears within 20min. The intracellular concentration was confirmed by ICP, which gives a $Cs^+$ content of $22.0\pm3.5mM$. The relaxation data significantly underestimate the Gd content, suggesting a potential compartmentation of $Cs^+$ and the contrast agent.