Previous studies indicated that the physical state of cellular water could be significantly different from pure liquid water. To experimentally investigate this possibility, we conducted a series of spin-echo NMR measurements on water protons in rat skeletal muscle. Our result indicated that the spin-lattice relaxation time and the spin-spin relaxation time of cellular water protons are both significantly shorter than that of pure water (by 4.3-fold and 34-fold, respectively). Furthermore, the spin diffusion coefficient of water proton is almost 1/2 of that of pure water. These data suggest that cellular water is in a more ordered state in comparison to pure water.
@article{arxiv.1412.6003,
title = {Spin Echo Studies on Cellular Water},
author = {D. C. Chang and C. F. Hazlewood and B. L. Nichols and H. E. Rorschach},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.6003},
year = {2014}
}