The composition of microbial communities has been investigated avoiding conventional cultural techniques by chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis of chemical signature markers. Concentrations of fatty acids, hydroxy acids, aldehydes, sterols, and methanolysate of the biomass lipid fractions were used to determine the population size of the individual community members. The calculation is based on the information stored in a data bank about the chemical composition of the probable members of the community. An algorithm for rapid assessment of the genus or species composition from the total biomass GC-MS data is developed for a quantitative analysis of this community, treating them as a combination of chemical profiles of individual members. The microbial community in kaolin slurry was analyzed; it includes the following genera (in 105 cells/g): Nitrobacter (4), Bacillus (0.9), Pseudomonas (0.3), Burkholderia (0.1), Nocardia (0.4), Caulobacter (3), Deinococcus (4), Arthrobacter (0.7), Clostridium (4), Bacteroides (0.08), Desulfovibrio (1), Desulfobacter (0.3). Analyses of the profiles of unassigned components revealed the presence of two as yet unknown organisms, one being an iron-reducing bacterium designated strain FeRed, the other a microscopic fungus.
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Осипов et al. (1997) studied this question.
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