Preparation of radioactive diacetyl,acetoin, and 2,3-butylene glycol

Toluene-treated cells of Streptococcus diacetilactis produced large amounts of diacetyl and acetoin without 2,3-butylene glycol. With Na-[3-¹⁴C]pyruvate added to reaction mixtures in place of unlabeled pyruvate, diacetyl with specific activity of 6.1 × 10⁴ cpm/μmol and acetoin with specific activity of 6.8 × 10⁴ cpm/μmol were harvested. Growing cells of Enterobacter aerogens incubated 48 h at 30°C in a complex medium produced large amounts of 2,3-butylene glycol without acetoin or diacetyl. With uniformly labeled [¹⁴C]glucose added to the medium in place of unlabeled glucose, 2,3-butylene glycol with specific activity of 10.8 × 10⁴ cpm/μmol was harvested. The radioactive chemicals were tested and found to be chromatographically homogeneous. Storage frozen in capped containers was especially important for diacetyl, which was found to evaporate rapidly from capped containers at room temperature.