The analysis of actinomycete wall amino acids by gas chromatography

1. INTRODUCTION 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS Since the early work of Cummins and Harris [1] cell wall analysis has become a widely used tech- nique in both the classification and identification of Gram-positive bacteria [2]. Methods for de- termining wall amino acids include paper chro- matography, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and ion exchange chromatography using the amino acid analyser; the latter being the method of choice where quantitative data are required [3]. Paper chromatography and TLC have been used prim- arily to provide a rapid qualitative assessment of the wall amino acid composition and to detect diagnostic diamino acids [4,5]. An established technique, applied only rarely to bacterial amino acids [6,7], is the conversion of amino acids into volatile derivatives and their analysis by gas chro- matography (GC) [8]. This approach is of poten- tial value since it provides reliable quantitative data on wall amino acids without the use of an amino acid analyser. This paper reports on the application of GC to the analysis of wall amino acids from selected defatted actinomycetes.