Biomolecular tracing using long-lived isotopes

摘要

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) was developed over the past 15 years as an essential tool for detecting long-lived, cosmogenic radio-isotopes in the earth and space sciences. We apply this technology to the measurement of chemical kinetics, primarily in biomedical systems, which had heretofore employed short-lived isotopes and/or long counting times to quantify radio-isotopic labels. AMS provides detection efficiencies of (approx) 1%, 10(sup 3) to 10(sup 6) better than decay-counting. Long-lived isotopes are used and detected with AMS at concentrations which reduce sample size, chemical dose, radiation safety hazards and radiolysis. We measure (sup 3)H, (sup 7,1O)Be, (sup 14)C, (sup 26)Al, (sup 36)CI, (sup 41)Ca and (sup 129)I, but most of our current program uses (sup 14)C. Initial experiments involved research on the genotoxicity of mutagens in cooked foods and reversible binding of compounds to antibodies. Through collaborations, we apply AMS detection to research in carcinogenesis, pharmacokinetics of toxins, elemental metabolism, distribution of topical medications and nutrition. (ERA citation 17:029734)