METHOD OF DETERMINING SOURCES OF ACETYL-COA UNDER NONSTEADY-STATE CONDITIONS

The present invention relates to a method of measuring the contribution of one or more exogenously administered 13C-labeled substrates to acetyl-CoA. The measurement can be made in a tissue or cell using 13C NMR without the constraint of metabolic or isotopic steady-state. Furthermore, the method permits the determination even when spectral lines are broad due to B0 inhomogeneity, thereby opening the way for substrate utilization studies in vivo. The method does not require many of the simplifying assumptions involved in 11C or 14C methods, and, since a stable isotope, 13C, is used a wide variety of compounds with complex labeling patterns may be synthesized and studied.