Catalytic enantiospecific deuteration of complex amino acid mixtures with ruthenium nanoparticles†

Hydrogen Isotope Exchange (HIE) of a mixture of amino acids has been studied with the purpose of producing deuterated proteins. However, although active catalysts are easily found for individual amino acids, competition in solution was found to prevent the deuteration of the mixture. Attempts at synthesizing new mono- and bimetallic catalysts able to perform this deuteration to a satisfactory level for all amino acids in the mixture were unsuccessful. In contrast, preparing ruthenium nanoparticles on mesoporous carbon gave access to rapid and full deuteration of a complex mixture of 13 representative amino-acids.