Chapter 14: Biosensing and Study of Biological Cells using Hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe

The lack of toxicity of xenon, its dissolution capabilities in most biological fluids and the ease with which its nuclear spin can be hyperpolarized make it a potent NMR probe of cellular events. In the aim of characterizing biological environments and processes, xenon can be used alone, or functionalized by dedicated host systems decorated by biological ligands. This chapter aims at summarizing some research we developed using free hyperpolarized xenon and xenon in molecular hosts in order to image or characterize biological cell receptors. The first part of the chapter describes how cells sensitive and resistant to chemotherapy can be discriminated using dissolved xenon in simple experiments, the second one emphasizes the first experiments performed with xenon biosensors designed to target cell receptors.