Determination of enantiomeric purity in biogenic11C-labelled amino acids by aminoacylation of tRNA

In syntheses of naturally occurring amino acids labelled with short-lived radionuclides, such as¹¹C, the determination of the enantiomeric purity presents problems. The aminoacyl coupling of L-amino acids to tRNA followed by a separation with gel filtration of the tRNA-amino acid complex and free amino acid, was here shown to be an adequate method for determining the enantiomeric purity of [methyl-¹¹C]-methionine even in the pmol range. This method has also been used for the determination of the specific radioactivity of the¹¹C-labelled methionine. The method is probably valid for other naturally occurring amino acids and it might also be of interest for enantiomeric separations of L- and D-amino acids of high specific radioactivity.