Preparation of Tritium-labelled Paromomycin (‘Humatin’) by Fermentation in a Medium containing Tritiated Water

Abstract

THE antibiotic paromomycin is a basic, water-soluble compound with a general structure similar to that of neomycin and kanamycin¹. Failure to obtain radio-chemically pure paromomycin following exposure to tritium gas by the Wilzbach technique² prompted us to try biosynthesis. While biosynthetic incorporation of hydrogen isotope from water into organic compounds has been reported frequently in the literature^3–5, this technique has not been used widely for preparation of tritium-labelled compounds. While the work reported here was in progress, Dutton et al.⁶ reported the isolation of tritium-labelled fatty acids from soybeans grown in a nutrient solution containing tritiated water.