Currently there are no diagnostic methods which can be utilized to index the metastatic potential of primary cancerous lesions. We believe that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in conjunction with other biochemical methods can be developed to predict the metastatic potential of primary localized tumors. The primary goal of this application is to determine which NMR techniques will be useful in indexing the metastatic potential of various prostate adenocarcinomas and to correlate these changes with cellular processes or structures believed to be involved in metastasis. This study will utilize various prostatic adenocarcinoma tissue culture cells which have different metastatic ability, implanted tumors of these various prostatic adenocarcinomas, and human tumors to answer the following questions: (i) Whether changes in T1 (spin-lattice) relaxation times, T"""""""" (spin-spin) relaxation times and diffusion coefficients of water protons (D) correlate with the metastatic potential of these tumors. (ii) If changes in relaxation times and diffusion of water in these tissues are observed, can they be attributed to changes in cellular components involved in the metastatic process? (iii) Can proton NMR spectroscopy be utilized to determine differences in the metastatic potential of tumors?
