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Marco-Rius, I.

Publications and source records attributed to Marco-Rius, I..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

A Bayesian Study to Optimally Unveil LDH Kinetic Mechanisms In Vivo

Many life-threatening diseases present characteristic changes in metabolic profiles throughout their progression. For example, an increase in lactic fermentation is characteristic of cancer and is described by the Warburg effect. Yet, only a few methodologies allow for detecting these changes non-invasively and in real-time. Furthermore, the frequent oversight of the systems biochemical mechanisms and the elevated time and resources required for experimentation risk stagnating research. Here, we address both problems thanks to mathematical modelling and Bayesian statistics. Thanks to modelling, we guided understanding of the lactate dehydrogenase system, highlighting the importance of cellular microenvironment effects, membrane transport and enzymatic repression. To deal with increasing model complexity, we introduced and validated a novel Bayesian optimal experimental design approach to maximise the informative content of experiments. Hence, our approach generated fast and efficient lactate dehydrogenase kinetics characterisation, resulting in generalisable and reliable predictions in vitro and in vivo.

systems biology↗

A deployable microfluidic platform for parallel and longitudinal hyperpolarised magnetic resonance metabolic phenotyping

Hyperpolarised magnetic resonance (MR) enables real-time measurement of metabolic flux in living systems but remains difficult to deploy for cell-based studies because each hyperpolarisation event typically interrogates a single biological condition, limiting throughput, replication and longitudinal experimentation. Here we present a deployable microfluidic platform for parallel and longitudinal hyperpolarised 13C metabolic phenotyping using standard MRI instrumentation. By combining microfluidics with spatially resolved MR spectroscopic imaging, the platform converts a single hyperpolarised preparation into multiple independent metabolic measurements without dedicated radiofrequency receive arrays or specialised instrumentation. We demonstrate reproducible discrimination of metabolically active and inactive samples, resolve cell-type-specific metabolic phenotypes, quantify biochemical and pharmacological perturbations, and recover metabolic exchange kinetics from parallel samples. Beyond increasing throughput, the platform enables repeated, non-destructive metabolic interrogation of the same recirculating three-dimensional cell cultures, allowing longitudinal phenotyping of living constructs rather than endpoint comparisons of independent samples. Across this study, 186 HP-MR measurements were acquired using only 44 polarisation events, corresponding to an approximately 4-fold increase in experimental throughput, while longitudinal monitoring reduced biological sample preparation 5-fold by following the same constructs over time. By lowering the technical barrier to hyperpolarised metabolic imaging while enabling both parallel and longitudinal metabolic phenotyping, this platform provides an accessible framework for drug discovery, microphysiological systems and patient-derived models.

bioengineering↗