Tritium labeling by dehalogenation of halogenated derivatives

In catalytic dehalogenation the halogen atom in an organic compound is ipso substituted with a hydrogen atom. This is a synthetic reaction often utilized to obtain specifically tritium-labeled compounds of extremely high specific activity. Dehalogenation reaction occurs also in excitation tritium labeling in which tritium atoms generated by microwave discharge activation (MDA) are reacted with substrate located downstream from the tritium plasma to form labeled products. This method has the advantage of using less tritium for the reaction and is easier to manipulate than the former, but the reaction products are formed by tritium substitution as well as by tritium addition. A potential use of the dehalogenation reaction in excitation labeling is that the method can be applied to labeling of natural-occurring proteins and polypeptides. Our dehalogenation study is directed toward this goal