Changes in molecular expression or apoptotic behavior, induced by malignant transformation or anticancer treatment, are frequently reflected in cellular metabolism and oxygen consumption. A technique to monitor oxygen consumption, cell physiology, and metabolism noninvasively would provide a better understanding of interactions between molecular changes and metabolism in malignant transformation and following cancer treatment. Such a system was developed in this study by adapting multinuclear MRI and spectroscopic techniques to an isolated cell perfusion system. The system was evaluated by studying the effects of two agents, carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone ( The two major energy-providing metabolic pathways, oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis, play an important role in malignant transformation and in the action of anticancer agents and radiation therapy. Overexpression of certain oncogenes, such as ras and myc, can effect changes in mitochondrial membrane potential, cellular oxygen consumption, and glycolytic/oxidative metabolism (1-4). Modulation of oxygen-dependent processes in the cell can also enhance the cytotoxic effects of anticancer drugs, as was demonstrated for lonidamine, an inhibitor of electron transport and oxygen consumption, and doxorubicin (5,6). To understand the impact of oxygen on cancer cell physiology and metabolism, and the action of certain anticancer agents, it is necessary to measure metabolic parameters such as oxygen consumption, lactate production, pH changes, ATP production, and glucose utilization, either interleaved or simultaneously, over the same period of time. Currently no single method exists to obtain such on-line measurements in real time. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy can be used to measure pH, ATP levels, intracellular lactate levels, and glycolytic flux.Polarographic measurements of oxygen tension in the influx and efflux perfusate have been used in NMR cell perfusion systems to determine oxygen consumption (7,8). These measurements, however, are obtained at sampling points distant from the cell sample, and oxygen permeation through the perfusion lines may cause errors-particularly at low perfusion rates.McGovern et al. (9) originally proposed using 19 F NMR to measure oxygen concentrations, from T 1 relaxation rates of perfluorocarbons (PFC) embedded into microcarriers used for cell immobilization. In their study, cellular oxygen consumption rates were derived from complex calculations of the volume-averaged data. Subsequently, we envisaged that spatially localized PFC T 1 relaxation rates, measured in cell-free PFC-doped alginate beads positioned at the bottom and top of the active volume of the NMR sample tube, would directly provide oxygen consumption values for a cell sample encompassed by the two layers. In this work we report the design and evaluation of such a system, which is capable of measuring oxygen consumption together with ATP levels and pH of immobilized perfused cells. Lactate levels in medium collected from the influx and ...