Titel
Adapting an Ergosterol Extraction Method with Marine Yeasts for the Quantification of Oceanic Fungal Biomass
Autor*in
Franz Berthiller
Department of Agrobiotechnology (IFA-Tulln), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU)
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Abstract
Ergosterol has traditionally been used as a proxy to estimate fungal biomass as it is almost exclusively found in fungal lipid membranes. Ergosterol determination has been mostly used for fungal samples from terrestrial, freshwater, salt marsh- and mangrove-dominated environments or to describe fungal degradation of plant matter. In the open ocean, however, the expected concentrations of ergosterol are orders of magnitude lower than in terrestrial or macrophyte-dominated coastal systems. Consequently, the fungal biomass in the open ocean remains largely unknown. Recent evidence based on microscopy and -omics techniques suggests, however, that fungi contribute substantially to the microbial biomass in the oceanic water column, highlighting the need to accurately determine fungal biomass in the open ocean. We performed ergosterol extractions of an oceanic fungal isolate (Rhodotorula sphaerocarpa) with biomass concentrations varying over nine orders of magnitude. While after the initial chloroform-methanol extraction ~87% of the ergosterol was recovered, a second extraction recovered an additional ~10%. Testing this extraction method on samples collected from the open Atlantic Ocean, we successfully determined ergosterol concentrations as low as 0.12 pM. Thus, this highly sensitive method is well suited for measuring fungal biomass from open ocean waters, including deep-sea environments.
Stichwort
marine fungichloroform-methanol extractionHPLC-UVLC-MS/MSergosterolpelagic fungal biomass
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1545115
Erschienen in
Titel
Journal of Fungi
Band
7
Ausgabe
9
ISSN
2309-608X
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Publication
MDPI AG
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Zugänglichkeit
Rechte
Rechteangabe
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