Cancer cells undergoing starvation- and treatment-induced autophagy were found to exhibit reduced intracellular lactate, reduced rates of steady-state lactate excretion and reduced real-time pyruvate-lactate exchange rates, indicating that glycolytic metabolism was altered in autophagic cells. In this chapter, we describe the technical details of the use of 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to measure endogenous cellular concentrations of lactate and glucose in autophagic cells and tissues, how to measure the rate of steady-state lactate excretion and glucose uptake by 1H-MRS in autophagic cells, and details of the real-time measurement of [1-13C] pyruvate to lactate exchange in autophagic cells by 13C-MRS-DNP (dynamic nuclear polarization).
Keywords: Autophagy; Dynamic nuclear polarization; Glucose; Glycolysis; Lactate; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Pyruvate–lactate exchange.
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