Quantification of the Contribution of Extracellular Sodium to ²³Na Multiple-Quantum-Filtered NMR Spectra of Suspensions of Human Red Blood Cells

²³Na double-quantum-filtered (DQF) NMR enables the detection of anisotropic motion of sodium ions due to their interaction with ordered structures in biological tissues. Using the technique, anisotropic motion was found for sodium ions in mammalian red blood cell suspensions (RBC) and the effect was shown to correlate with the integrity of membrane cytoskeleton. In the present study relative contributions to the DQF and triple-quantum-filtered (TQF) spectra of sodium bound to anisotropic and isotropic binding sites in the intra- and extracellular sodium pools (Na content being 15 and 150 mM, respectively) of human RBC were quantified for different hematocrits. DQF spectra were measured by a modified Jeener-Broekaert pulse sequence which enabled exclusive detection of anisotropically moving sodium ions. The relative contributions of the extracellular sodium to the TQF and DQF spectra decreased as the hematocrit increased, but their efficiency relative to the sodium content increased. The contribution of the extracellular sodium to the TQF signal was found to dominate the spectrum of the RBC suspension at all hematocrits studied. The contribution of the extracellular sodium to the DQF was significantly smaller than that to the TQF and was only 22% at a high hematocrit of about 90%.