BOC Sciences Labelled Amino Acids from Alex Browns's blog

BOC Sciences is committed to providing customers with the most comprehensive variety of isotope-labeled amino acids available. We provide products such as essential amino acids and derivatives, including lysine, phenylalanine, methionine, etc., as well as non-essential amino acids and derivatives, including tyrosine, alanine, serine, glutamic acid, etc.

L-Leucine-[13C6] is the labelled analogue of L-Leucine. Leucine is a non-glucogenic, essential amino acid. It is a branched-chain amino acid that is a structural component of proteins. Leucine positively influences insulin release to eliminate toxic sugars out of the blood.

What are Amino Acids?

Amino acids are organic compounds containing basic amino groups and acidic carboxyl groups and formed by replacing the hydrogen atoms of carboxylic acids with amino groups. Amino acids are important constituents of organisms, reserve irreplaceable biological functions, and play essential roles in metabolic cycles. In addition to being the basic building materials of proteins, amino acids can also be the precursors of many other biomolecules (such as cytosine, adenine, epinephrine, etc.). At the same time, amino acids are widely used in medicine, food, cosmetics, and other fields.

In the field of medicine: Amino acids are used as the raw materials for proteins, antibodies, and hormones synthesis; amino acids can be used as nutrients and metabolic modifiers and have antibacterial and analgesic effects.

In the field of food: Amino acids can be used as food preservatives, deodorants, coloring agents, sterilizers, additives, spices, etc.

In the field of cosmetics: Amino acids can be used as surfactants, hair conditioners, hair dyes, etc.

What are Isotope-labeled Amino Acids?

Isotope-labeled amino acids refer to the replacement of single or multiple atoms of the amino acid with isotopes, which can be radioactive isotopes or stable isotopes. Basically, isotope-labeled amino acids have identical structures and properties as non-labeled amino acids. The trends of isotopes-labeled amino acids can be observed by analytical methods such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance. Therefore, isotope-labeled amino acids serve as safe, effective, and convenient tracer tools for scientific research in medicine, biology, pharmacy, chemistry, etc.

In the field of medicine: Isotope-labeled amino acids can be used for the clinical diagnosis of various diseases. Labeled amino acids can be used as tracers to track the metabolic processes of amino acids and proteins in different physiological and pathological conditions, which allows the exploration of disease mechanism and effective ways to prevent and treat diseases.

In the field of biology: Isotope-labeled amino acids are used as starting materials to study the biosynthetic pathways and mechanisms of natural products in animals, plants, and microorganisms by analyzing the abundance of labeled elements in products.

In the field of pharmacy: Isotope-labeled amino acids are critical tools for the development of new drugs, and are used to determine the transfer, transformation, efficacy, mechanism of action, toxicity, and side effects of drugs in vivo.

In the field of chemistry: Isotope-labeled amino acids can be used as tracers to explore chemical reaction mechanisms and as raw materials for the synthesis of other labeled products, such as labeled polypeptides.