L-Phenylalanine

About This Product

L-phenylalanine is an essential aromatic amino acid, produced commercially by bacterial fermentation and supplied as a white crystalline powder. It is essential in the sense that the human body cannot synthesise it and must obtain it from the diet. Its principal industrial market is as a raw material for aspartame, the high-intensity sweetener, which is the methyl ester of a dipeptide formed from L-phenylalanine and L-aspartic acid. That connection has a direct regulatory consequence: because digestion of aspartame liberates phenylalanine, every product containing aspartame must carry a declaration that it is a source of phenylalanine, for the benefit of people with phenylketonuria, an inherited disorder in which the enzyme that metabolises phenylalanine is absent and the amino acid accumulates to neurotoxic levels. It is also the biosynthetic precursor to tyrosine, and thence to the catecholamine neurotransmitters, which underlies its use in nutritional supplements. In animal nutrition and in parenteral feeding it is supplied as part of balanced amino acid profiles, and it serves as a pharmaceutical intermediate. It is used in aspartame manufacture, nutritional supplements, parenteral nutrition, animal feed amino acid balancing and as a pharmaceutical intermediate. Bio Green Chem supplies L-phenylalanine to specification on assay, optical rotation, loss on drying, residue on ignition, chloride, sulfate and heavy metals.