A general procedure for the preparation of α, β labeled amino acids

Abstract
The α and β hydrogen exchange reactions catalyzed by pyridoxal have been applied to ten of the common amino acids to prepare α, β deuterated derivatives. The exchange and isolation procedure allows for numerous different samples to be processed in parallel. The deuteration at the α position range from 96 to 99% while the β deuteration levels range from 93 to 97% except for lysine (91%) which exchanges more slowly presumably due to interference of the ϵ‐amino group. The standard procedure produces approximately a gram of deuterated product for all samples except tyrosine (0.15 g) with yields from 70 to 85% using only 15 milliliters of 2H2O. The procedure has been scaled up directly to 100 millimoles for the case of alanine with virtually identical deuteration and product yield.

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