NMR/MRI experiment Engineered tissue samples Result Ref.
Water suppressed proton NMR
  1. Chondrocytes in Alginate beads for four weeks of culture time
  2. Chondrocyte pellets for four weeks of culture time
  1. NMR spectral lines associated with macromolecules are broader and stronger for pellets.
  2. N-acetyl peak associated with GAG at 2ppm is found to be very week in engineered tissues.
  3. Cell proliferation can be tracked using lipid peak at 1.3 ppm.
 [21,49]
Sodium triple quantum coherence spectroscopy
  1. Chondrocytes in Alginate beads for four weeks of culture time
  2. Chondrocyte pellets for four weeks of culture time
  3. Mesenchymal stem cells in biomimetic cartilage scaffold for four weeks of culture time
Average quadrupolar coupling are found to be lower in engineered cartilage tissues as compared to the native tissue indicating lack of order in engineered tissues. [21]
Proton double quantum coherence spectroscopy
  1. Chondrocytes in Alginate beads for four weeks of culture time
  2. Chondrocyte pellets for four weeks of culture time
 Low average dipolar coupling for both samples as compared to the native tissue. The average dipolar coupling was higher (~70 Hz) in alginate bead as compared to the chondrocyte pellets (~20 Hz). [51]
T1, T2 and ADC MR parametric maps Chondrocyte pellets for four weeks of culture time T1 decrease by 18%, T2 decreased 42%, ADC decreased by 26% over the four-week period while tissue gained complexity and extra cellular matrix component that was visible in T2 weighted images. [25]
T1, T2 and ADC MR parametric maps Human Chondrocytes seeded in alginate beads and observed for four weeks of culture time T1 decrease by 6%, T2 increased by 8%, ADC decreased by 5%.  
T1, T2 and ADC MR parametric maps Human MSCs in collagen/chitosan scaffold for two weeks of culture time T1 decrease by 66%, T2 decreased 49%, ADC remained unchanged. [26]
Table 1: The representative results of MR characterization of engineered cartilage and bone tissues.