Dilara Faderl (KIT, Germany)
Abstract: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) combines the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with spatial encoding, enabling the spatially resolved detection of molecular interactions across diverse physical and chemical environments. In particular, MRI can encode contrast based on nuclear relaxation properties (transverse and longitudinal relaxation), making it a versatile tool for studying molecular processes. However, extracting such information is inherently associated with long acquisition times, as repeated signal averaging and additional phase-encoding steps are often required. Therefore, parallelization and miniaturization are essential for improving efficiency in both data acquisition and sample handling.
In this work, we exploited ^19F MRI for high-throughput ligand screening. ^19F MRI offers unique advantages because fluorine nuclei provide intrinsic chemical selectivity and negligible biological background, enabling direct spatial mapping of fluorinated reporter ligands without the need for additional spectroscopic encoding. By combining sample parallelization with compressed sensing and paramagnetic enhancement strategies, we screened 61 non-fluorinated samples within a total measurement time of 55 minutes, corresponding to only 54 seconds per sample. This approach accelerated ligand screening compared to conventional NMR methods, reducing the acquisition time from approximately 20 hours to 1 hour. In addition to high-throughput sample analysis, the method provides a quantitative approach for determining the binding strength of unknown drug candidates.
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