I have conducted PLFA for analyzing soil microbial community structure, but i don't know exactly what the following biomarker means. I mean which biomarker indicates the particular type of bacteri, arhaea or whatever?
Determination of the phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pattern of soil organisms has become one of the most commonly used methods to study microbial community in soil in the early 1990s. It is a rapid and sensitive method to detect changes in the microbial
community in soil, as with all popular methods. Fungi have very few different PLFAs in their membranes and, even if there were thousands of different fungal species in a soil sample, there would be less than ten major types of fungal PLFAs. The same PLFAs could, theoretically, derive from a sample with only ten or less fungal species. For bacteria there is more variation, but some have few PLFAs, or few dominant PLFAs, while other bacteria have manydifferent PLFAs in their membrane. The PLFA method is a rapid and inexpensive way of assaying the biomass and composition of microbial communities in soils, and may even be more sensitive in detecting shifts in microbial community composition when compared to nucleic acid based methods
Hey there
There is a lot of interesting information about the PLFA's in the review 'Use an misuse of PLFA measurements in soils' (Frostgard et al. 2010). I use the same fatty acids as in the article in the attachment. I did see that you used one biomarker for bacillus, when you reed frostegard et al. 2010 you will see that this is a little bit dangerous cause some fatty acids can occur in other organisms also. I hope that these articles can help you.
I recommend :
Bossio, D. A., & Scow, K. M. (1998). Impacts of Carbon and Flooding on Soil Microbial Communities: Phospholipid Fatty Acid Profiles and Substrate Utilization Patterns. Microbial ecology, 35(3), 265–278.
Zelles, L. (1999). Fatty acid patterns of phospholipids and lipopolysaccharides in the characterisation of microbial communities in soil: a review. Biology and Fertility of Soils, 29(2), 111–129. doi:10.1007/s003740050533
Kaur, A., A. Chaudhary, A. Kaur, R. Choudhary, and R. Kaushik. 2005. Phospholipid fatty acid – A bioindicator of environment monitoring and assessment in soil ecosystem. Current Science 89: 1103-1112.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Microbiology
- Virology
- Virus