| Summary: | Recent magnetic resonance studies in healthy and cancerous organs have concluded that deuterated metabolites possess highly desirable properties for mapping non-invasively and, as they happen, characterizing glycolysis and other biochemical processes in animals and humans. A promising avenue of this deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) approach involves looking at the fate of externally administered <sup>2</sup>H<sub>6,6′</sub>-glucose, as it is taken up and metabolized into different products as a function of time. This study employs deuterium magnetic resonance to follow the metabolism of wildtype and preeclamptic pregnant mice models, focusing on maternal and fetoplacental organs over ≈2 h post-injection. <sup>2</sup>H<sub>6,6′</sub>-glucose uptake was observed in the placenta and in specific downstream organs such as the fetal heart and liver. Main metabolic products included <sup>2</sup>H<sub>3,3′</sub>-lactate and <sup>2</sup>H-water, which were produced in individual fetoplacental organs with distinct time traces. Glucose uptake in the organs of most preeclamptic animals appeared more elevated than in the control mice (<i>p</i> = 0.02); also higher was the production of <sup>2</sup>H-water arising from this glucose. However, the most notable differences arose in the <sup>2</sup>H<sub>3,3′</sub>-lactate concentration, which was ca. two-fold more abundant in the placenta (<i>p</i> = 0.005) and in the fetal (<i>p</i> = 0.01) organs of preeclamptic-like animals, than in control mice. This is consistent with literature reports about hypoxic conditions arising in preeclamptic and growth-restricted pregnancies, which could lead to an enhancement in anaerobic glycolysis. Overall, the present measurements suggest that DMI, a minimally invasive approach, may offer new ways of studying and characterizing health and disease in mammalian pregnancies, including humans.
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