Preparation of Tritiated Sugars

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the preparation of tritiated sugars. There are several methods that can be used to specifically introduce a tritium label into sugars, namely, reduction of a suitable group by a metal hydride—preferably sodium borohydride—chemical or enzymic reactions in which a hydrogen is rendered exchangeable with water, hydroboration of or addition of water to a double bond, and Wilzbach exchange with tritium gas. Most of these methods lead to a mixture of products although often one isomer predominates. As tritium is a radioactive isotope, all preparations should be conducted in an efficient hood and care must be taken when handling high activities, especially to avoid contaminating other experiments. Unstoppered water solutions rapidly exchange with atmospheric water. Exchangeable hydrogens—those attached to oxygen or nitrogen—are usually lost during evaporation of solvent or during paper chromatography.