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Nitrogen-15 is a stable, non-radioactive isotope of nitrogen. It is often used in agricultural and medical research, for example the Meselson–Stahl experiment to establish the nature of DNA replication. An extension of this research resulted in development of DNA-based stable isotope probing, which allows examination of links between metabolic function and taxonomic identity of microorganisms in the environment, without the need for culture isolation. Nitrogen-15 is extensively used to trace mineral nitrogen compounds (particularly fertilizers) in the environment and when combined with the use of other isotopic labels, is also a very important tracer for describing the fate of nitrogenous organic pollutants.

Nitrogen-15 is frequently used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), because unlike the more abundant nitrogen-14, it has a nuclear spin of ½, which simplifies observation by NMR. Proteins can be isotopically labelled by cultivating them in a medium containing nitrogen-15 as the only source of nitrogen. In addition, nitrogen-15 is used to label proteins in quantitative proteomics (e.g. SILAC).

It is a product of oxygen-15 positron emission.

Reference

1. Meselson, M., Stahl, F.W., 1958. The replication of DNA in E. coli. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 44, 671–682.
2. Radajewski, S., McDonald, I.R., Murrell, J.C., 2003. Stable-isotope probing of nucleic acids: a window to the function of uncultured microorganisms. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 14, 296–302.
3. Cupples, A.M., E.A. Shaffer, J.C. Chee-Sanford, and G.K. Sims. 2007. DNA buoyant density shifts during 15N DNA stable isotope probing. Microbiological Res. 162:328-334.
4. Marsh, K. L., G. K. Sims, and R. L. Mulvaney. 2005. Availability of urea to autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria as related to the fate of 14C- and 15N-labeled urea added to soil. Biol. Fert. Soil. 42:137-145.
5. Bichat, F., G.K. Sims, and R.L. Mulvaney. 1999. Microbial utilization of heterocyclic nitrogen from atrazine. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 63:100-110.
6. CRC HANDBOOK of CHEMISTRY and PHYSICS, 64 th EDITION, 1983-1984; page B-234

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