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Old August 26th, 2006, 09:39
sdekivit sdekivit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RobJim
Does the [14C] refer to temperature or what? Also, what does dpm mean?
it's radioactively labelled pyruvate (pyruvate containing the C-14 isotope). Dpm stands for desintegrations per minute.

the specific activity means the activity per amount of pyruvate. It can be calculated by dividing the total activity by the amount of pyruvate in mg.

So when adding water, there's no change in the specific activity, since the amount of pyruvate doesn't change. Adding unlabelled pyruvate will lower the specifi activity of the pyruvate, since the amount of pyruvate in the solution rises.