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Quantitation of Amino Sugar Biomarkers from Microbial Necromass in
Soil
Kathryn E. R. Dawe <[email protected]>, T. C. VandenBoer*, R. DiLorenzo, C. J.
Young, and S. Ziegler,
Memorial University of Newfoundland
A portion of soil organic matter (SOM) is comprised of the amino sugar isomers
glucosamine, galactosamine and mannosamine, and muramic acid. These isomers can be used as
biomarkers to track both source and transformation of molecules of fungal or bacterial origin in
the environment. Quantitatively analyzing these four particular amino sugars in soil may provide
insight about the contribution and fate of both carbon and nitrogen from bacterial and fungal
residues in the production and degradation of SOM. Previous work on these biomarkers has not
demonstrated a single method capable of quantitative recovery for all four amino sugars from
environmental samples. Our method incorporates new internal standards into the traditional soil
acid digestion and subsequent cleanup of the soil acid hydrolysate by ion retardation resin, and
adds a single step solid phase extraction for all the target analytes followed by analysis by liquid
chromatography coupled to a tandem or a time of flight mass spectrometer. Separations of the
isomers and muramic acid were achieved using a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography
column. Once optimized, this method will be applied to real soil samples from a latitudinal
transect of boreal forest sites in Newfoundland & Labrador.