The polyamines putrescine, spermidine and spermine are involved in the regulation of various metabolic processes. It is therefore desirable to detect and quantify the polyamines with NMR. We present the proton and carbon assignments for all polyamine signals obtained from PCA extracts of F98 glioma cells with high resolution using a semi-selective HSQC 2D-experiment. The biosynthesis of the polyamines in cell culture was examined using the labeled substrates [U-13C]glucose and [U-13C]glutamate. In such studies the high resolution of the semi-selective HSQC experiment at very high magnetic fields (14-19 T) allows the analysis of carbon-carbon couplings, and isotopomer patterns. The different effects of osmotic stress on the concentrations of polyamines and amino acids are also reported.