Crossover experiment (chemistry) or phosphine. The mechanisms of enzyme-catalyzed reactions can also be studied using crossover experiments. Examples of the application of this technique in biochemistry include the study of reactions catalyzed by nucleoside diphosphohexose-4,6-dehydratases, the aconitase-catalyzed elimination of water from citrate, and various reactions catalyzed by coenzyme B-dependent enzymes, among others. Unlike isotope labeling studies in organic and organometallic chemistry, which typically use deuterium when an isotope of hydrogen is desired, biochemical crossover experiments frequently employ tritium. This is due to the fact that tritium is radioactive and can be tracked using the autoradiographs of gels in gel electrophoresis. Isotope labeling experiments
Radioactive decay in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. These lightest stable nuclides (including deuterium) survive to today, but any radioactive isotopes of the light elements produced in the Big Bang (such as tritium) have long since decayed. Isotopes of elements heavier than boron were not produced at all in the Big Bang, and these first five elements do not have any long-lived radioisotopes. Thus, all radioactive nuclei are, therefore, relatively young with respect to the birth of the universe, having formed later in various other types of nucleosynthesis in stars (in particular, supernovae), and also during ongoing interactions between stable isotopes