The Component Combined Amino Acids of Some Marine Phytoplankton Species

Gas-liquid and thin-layer chromatography have been used for the determination of 25 amino acids in the hydrolysates of 25 species of marine phytoplankton which had been grown in Erd-Schreiber medium. The general pattern of their distribution agrees with that found by earlier workers; the principal amino acids being glutamic acid, alanine, leucine and aspartic acids. Small amounts of 2-amino- n -butyric and 2-amino-iso-butyric acid together with compounds which have been tentatively identified as 4-amino- n -butyric acid and the 2-amino- and 2,5-diamino derivations of adipic acid were detected in many of the organisms. No differences were found which could be related to the taxonomy of the organisms.