SGER: Adaptation of a chromatographic technique for accurate, rapid and affordable determination of soil amino acid concentration and their fingerprints

越来越多的间接证据表明，许多原生土壤的特点是可溶性氨基酸（AAs）的浓度相对较高。此外，来自众多生态系统的许多植物物种已被证明能够吸收AA。尽管有这样的证据，有相当大的不确定性的相对重要性，AA的本地植物每年的N需求。这种不确定性的解决是缓慢的，主要是由于缺乏用户友好和成本效益的技术，可以广泛用于评估土壤中的AA及其指纹在原生土壤。 在这项研究中，我们建议使用最近开发的离子交换柱来分析AA组合物/指纹，并测量它们对气候和土壤因素的响应。鉴于AA在其生化性质上显著不同的明确事实，因此每个AA需要不同的膜结合载体以促进其摄取和转运。因此，不仅要了解土壤中氨基酸的总有效性，而且要了解它们的组成。我们将利用高效液相色谱（HPLC）的最新进展，开发快速，准确和负担得起的土壤AA剖面测量。拟议的研究应使目前的专业分析化学技术很容易在地球化学研究中广泛使用。最终，我们希望这里产生的结果将消除技术障碍，目前正在减缓我们的能力，表征和整合土壤AAs信息到陆地N循环模型。

There is growing albeit circumstantial evidence that many native soils are characterized by a relatively large concentration of soluble amino acids (AAs). Additionally, numerous plant species from multitudes of ecosystems have been shown to be able to absorb AAs. Despite such evidence, there is considerable uncertainty about the relative importance of AAs to the annual N requirements of native plants. The resolution to this uncertainty is slow in coming largely due to the lack of user friendly and cost effective techniques that can be widely used in assessing soil AAs and their fingerprints in native soils. In this study, we propose to use a recently developed ion exchange column to assay AA composition/fingerprints and to measure their response to climatic and edaphic factors. Given the unequivocal fact that AAs differ significantly in their biochemical properties, it follows that each AA requires a distinct membrane bound carrier to facilitate its uptake and transport. Therefore, it is critical to know not only total availability of soil AAs but also their composition. We will use recent advances in High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to develop rapid, accurate and affordable measurements of soil AA profiles. The proposed research should make what is currently a specialized analytical chemistry technique easily available for wide spread use in biogeochemistry research. Ultimately, we hope the results generated here will remove technical obstacles that are currently slowing down our ability to characterize and integrate soil AAs information into models of the terrestrial N cycle.