BEAMS Lab at MIT: Status report

Abstract

The Biological Engineering Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (BEAMS) Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a facility dedicated to incorporating AMS into life sciences research. As such, it is focused exclusively on radiocarbon and tritium AMS and makes use of a particularly compact instrument of a size compatible with most laboratory space. Recent developments at the BEAMS Lab were aimed to improve different stages of the measurement process, such as the carbon sample injection interface, the simultaneous detection of tritium and hydrogen and finally, the overall operation of the system. Upgrades and results of those efforts are presented here.

Lycopene bioavailability and metabolism in humans: an accelerator mass spectrometry study

“…This system and its operation have been described in detail in previous publications (42,43). Expired carbon dioxide that was trapped on Ascarite (Sigma) was analyzed after its release by treatment with concentrated sulfuric acid within a septumsealed vial and released carbon dioxide was introduced directly into the AMS source without laser combustion.…”

Tritium: a coming of age for drug discovery and development ADME studies

“…In the case of high potency drugs, only the tritium‐labelled compound can give ADME information at the appropriate exposures, unless carbon‐14 accelerator mass spectrometry techniques are used. In this context, it is worth noting that accelerator mass spectrometry techniques are also applicable to the tritium isotope, resulting in ~1000‐fold increase in sensitivity over liquid scintillation counting …”

Salvage of oxidized guanine derivatives in the (2′-deoxy)ribonucleotide pool as source of mutations in DNA

“…AMS does not quantify 8-oxodG directly, but is useful for metabolism studies in which a tracer of [ 14 C]8-oxodG or other related metabolites is tracked at physiologically relevant concentrations [17–19]. A similar tracer study was reported for M 1 G metabolism [63] at the MIT BEAMS Lab [64]. Direct detection of DNA damage by AMS requires the utilization of specific "postlabeling" chemistries that are still in development for DNA adduct studies [55;65;66].…”