Formation of amino acids from reactor-irradiated ammonium acetate.

Ammonium acetate in various conditions was irradiated in a reactor to examine the contributions of both the reactor radiations and recoiled 14C nucleus to form the biologically interesting molecules. Present investigations demonstrated that several amino acids, glycine, alanine, beta-alanine and GABA, and may-be aspartic acid, serine and valine by prolonged irradiation, were formed in the aqueous solutions of ammonium acetate. 14C-radioactivities were also found distributed in these amino acids. However, no special relationship between 14C-radioactivity and these amino acids formed was observed.