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
Isotope persisted down to the present because their rate of decay is so slow (e.g. uranium-238 and potassium-40). Post-primordial isotopes were created by cosmic ray bombardment as cosmogenic nuclides (e.g., tritium, carbon-14), or by the decay of a radioactive primordial isotope to a radioactive radiogenic nuclide daughter (e.g. uranium to radium). A few isotopes are naturally synthesized as nucleogenic nuclides, by some other natural nuclear reaction, such as when neutrons from natural nuclear fission are absorbed by another atom. As discussed above, only 80 elements have any stable isotopes, and 26 of these have only one stable isotope. Thus, about two-thirds