α-Ketoacids as precursors for phenylalanine and tyrosine labelling in cell-based protein overexpression.

(13)C-α-ketoacid metabolic precursors of phenylalanine and tyrosine effectively enter the metabolism of a protein overexpressing E. coli strain to label Phe- and Tyr-residues devoid of any cross-labelling. The methodology gives access to highly selective labelling patterns as valuable tools in protein NMR spectroscopy without the need of (15)N-chiral amino acid synthesis using organic chemistry.