Muramic Acid as a Measure of Microbial Biomass in Black Sea Sediments

Abstract

Muramic acid, an amino acid found only in the cell wall polymers of bacteria and blue-green algae, has been detected in deeply buried sediments of the Black Sea.

Sources and fate of amino sugars in coastal Peruvian sediments

“…Amino sugars are stabilized in soils and persist after the death of cells; they therefore provide an indicator for dead rather than for living microbial biomass (Glaser et al, 2004). Historically, there have been attempts to establish Mur analysis for estimating bacterial abundances in marine POM and sediments (e.g., King and White, 1977;Moriarty, 1977;Mimura and Romano, 1985). Some of these studies revealed a good correspondence of cell number estimates based on Mur concentrations and actual bacterial counts from cell staining (e.g., Mimura and Romano, 1985).…”

Assimilatory sulfur metabolism in marine microorganisms

“…The 1 ipopo lysaccharide assay of Watson et al (1977) measures the amount of Gram-negative cell envelope presént in a sample and can be related to cell numbers and biomass within broad bounds. Following a similar premise, King and White, (1977) described an assay for bacterial cell wall muramic acid, found in all bacteria except extreme halophiles and methanogenic bacteria. Although quite specific for bacteri a, these assays cannot differentiate between 1 i ving and dead cell s.…”

The influence of single species populations of ciliates and multispecies fauna on pool size and outflow of microbial matter from the reticulo-rumen of sheep

“…The murein polysaccharides present in bacteria, protozoa, as well as in the rumen fluid and reticular effluent were measured by quantification of the lactic acid released from the substrate as a result of acidic hydrolysis (King and White, 1977;Bełżecki et al, 2012).…”

“…Thus, murein could be considered a potential source of substrates in energy-yielding processes of rumen microorganisms capable of digesting and fermenting murein polysaccharides. On the other hand, King and White (1977) used the muramic acid in muramine to quantify microbial biomass in estuarine and marine ecosystems. Due to this, as we discussed in our previous paper (Bełżecki et al, 2012), there is the possibility of using murein structural polysaccharides as internal markers of bacterial matter in the reticulo-rumen.…”