OPTIMIZATION OF MAGNETIZATION-TRANSFER EXPERIMENTS FOR KINETIC RATE MEASUREMENTS

A framework is developed for optimizing magnetization transfer experim ents for measuring first-order rate constants of a two-component excha nge network. In the analysis the spin-lattice relaxation time of the n onsaturated resonance is assumed to be known. However, we demonstrate that our work can also be applied to cases in which the spin-lattice r elaxation time falls within a physiologically reasonable range for thi s parameter. We provide an algorithm for the parameters permitting the experimenter to optimize the selection of measurement times in order to control the error in a worst-case scenario. In addition, we compare the performance of the time-dependent saturation experiment with an i nversion experiment in this framework, finding that the former always leads to a more effective design.