The early history of carbon-14

Kamen, Martin D.

doi:10.1021/ed040p234

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…These studies were the first in biology to make use of carbon‐14 and demonstrated that C . thermoaceticum incorporated 14 CO 2 equally into both carbons of acetate 32,33 . That C .…”

Section: The Discoverers Of Acetogens and Acetogenesismentioning

confidence: 92%

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Old Acetogens, New Light

Drake

Gößner

Daniel

2008

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

518

412

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Acetogens utilize the acetyl-CoA Wood-Ljungdahl pathway as a terminal electron-accepting, energy-conserving, CO(2)-fixing process. The decades of research to resolve the enzymology of this pathway (1) preceded studies demonstrating that acetogens not only harbor a novel CO(2)-fixing pathway, but are also ecologically important, and (2) overshadowed the novel microbiological discoveries of acetogens and acetogenesis. The first acetogen to be isolated, Clostridium aceticum, was reported by Klaas Tammo Wieringa in 1936, but was subsequently lost. The second acetogen to be isolated, Clostridium thermoaceticum, was isolated by Francis Ephraim Fontaine and co-workers in 1942. C. thermoaceticum became the most extensively studied acetogen and was used to resolve the enzymology of the acetyl-CoA pathway in the laboratories of Harland Goff Wood and Lars Gerhard Ljungdahl. Although acetogenesis initially intrigued few scientists, this novel process fostered several scientific milestones, including the first (14)C-tracer studies in biology and the discovery that tungsten is a biologically active metal. The acetyl-CoA pathway is now recognized as a fundamental component of the global carbon cycle and essential to the metabolic potentials of many different prokaryotes. The acetyl-CoA pathway and variants thereof appear to be important to primary production in certain habitats and may have been the first autotrophic process on earth and important to the evolution of life. The purpose of this article is to (1) pay tribute to those who discovered acetogens and acetogenesis, and to those who resolved the acetyl-CoA pathway, and (2) highlight the ecology and physiology of acetogens within the framework of their scientific roots.

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“…These studies were the first in biology to make use of carbon‐14 and demonstrated that C . thermoaceticum incorporated 14 CO 2 equally into both carbons of acetate 32,33 . That C .…”

Section: The Discoverers Of Acetogens and Acetogenesismentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The fixation of CO 2 proposed by Fontaine was demonstrated experimentally a few years later in 1945 with the landmark 14 C‐studies of Barker and Kamen 32,33 . These studies were the first in biology to make use of carbon‐14 and demonstrated that C .…”

Section: The Discoverers Of Acetogens and Acetogenesismentioning

confidence: 96%

Old Acetogens, New Light

Drake

Gößner

Daniel

2008

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

518

412

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“…Artificial radioisotopes could be generated by exposing targets to cyclotron radiation (Lawrence, ). In this way the radioisotopes 3 H (Alvarez & Cornog, ), 14 C (Ruben & Kamen, , for a history of 14 C discovery and production see Kamen, ) and 32 P (Hahn & Hevesy, ; Marshak, ) were discovered, and their use in metabolic studies immediately started.…”

Section: –1950 Stable Isotopes and Radioisotopes Of Light Bioelemmentioning

confidence: 99%

A timeline of stable isotopes and mass spectrometry in the life sciences

Lehmann

2016

Mass Spec Rev

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This review retraces the role of stable isotopes and mass spectrometry in the life sciences. The timeline is divided into four segments covering the years 1920-1950, 1950-1980, 1980-2000, and 2000 until today. For each period methodic progress and typical applications are discussed. Application of stable isotopes is driven by improvements of mass spectrometry, chromatography, and related fields in sensitivity, mass accuracy, structural specificity, complex sample handling ability, data output, and data evaluation. We currently experience the vision of omics-type analyses, that is, the comprehensive identification and quantification of a complete compound class within one or a few analytical runs. This development is driven by stable isotopes without competition by radioisotopes. In metabolic studies as classic field of isotopic tracer experiments, stable isotopes and radioisotopes were competing solutions, with stable isotopes as the long-term junior partner. Since the 1990s the number of metabolic studies with radioisotopes decreases, whereas stable isotope studies retain their slow but stable upward tendency. Unique fields of stable isotopes are metabolic tests in newborns, metabolic experiments in healthy controls, newborn screening for inborn errors, quantification of drugs and drug metabolites in doping control, natural isotope fractionation in geology, ecology, food authentication, or doping control, and more recently the field of quantitative omics-type analyses. There, cells or whole organisms are systematically labeled with stable isotopes to study proteomic differences or specific responses to stimuli or genetic manipulation. The duo of stable isotopes and mass spectrometry will probably continue to grow in the life sciences, since it delivers reference-quality quantitative data with molecular specificity, often combined with informative isotope effects. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Mass Spec Rev 36:58-85, 2017.

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“…There the ammonium nitrate was exposed to slow-neutrons for weeks, eventually yielding significant amounts of the long lived radio-isotope of carbon (14C) (Ruben and Kamen 1941, Kamen 1963. He was clearly disappointed that I did not play an instrument.…”

Section: University Of California At Berkeley: Sam Ruben and Martin Kmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recollections

Frenkel

1993

Photosynth Res

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About 1939, Sam Ruben and Martin Kamen introduced me to the emergent application of artificial radio-isotopes in the study of photosynthesis. While my own experiments on CO2 fixation by isolated chloroplasts turned out to be negative, their laboratory provided me with an informative and exciting experience. Also, there were many stimulating contacts with Cornelis van Niel, Robert Emerson, Don DeVault and many other outstanding scientists. Efforts on my part to obtain a better understanding of intermediary metabolism, eventually led me to Fritz Lipmann's laboratory. There I was encouraged to study the metabolic activities of cell-free preparations of photosynthetic purple bacteria. Investigations of oxidative phosphorylation by isolated bacterial chromatophores in the dark raised questions about the possible effects of light on the phosphorylation activities of such preparations. Surprisingly, high rates of phosphorylation were observed in the light in the absence of molecular oxygen ('light-induced phosphorylation'). In this process, adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate (Pi) could be converted quantitatively into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It was postulated that this process was 'cyclic' in nature, as only catalytic concentrations of added electron donors were required. Later, at Minnesota, it could be shown that similar chromatophore preparations, in the presence of suitable electron donors, could reduce nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide (NAD(+)) to NADH in the light. It was then demonstrated that the chromatophores of Rhodospirilum rubrum, as well as the smaller membrane components derived from them, must contain the active metabolic components for these photosynthetic reactions.These observations, and studies on the kinetics of the formation and decay of light-induced free radicals, appeared to demonstrate the usefulness of bacterial chromatophores and of their membrane fragments in the study of partial reactions of bacterial photosynthesis. Since that time, numerous investigators elsewhere have carried out remarkable research on the purification and eventual crystallization of distinct bacterial membrane components, capable of carrying out well characterized photochemical and electron transport reactions.

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The early history of carbon-14

Abstract: Traces the discovery and early history of carbon-14.

Cited by 25 publications

References 18 publications

Old Acetogens, New Light

Old Acetogens, New Light

A timeline of stable isotopes and mass spectrometry in the life sciences

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