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，许多天然土壤的特点是可溶性氨基酸(AAs)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AAs。尽管有这些证据，但AAs对当地植物年度氮素需求的相对重要性仍存在相当大的不确定性。对这一不确定性的解决进展缓慢，这主要是因为缺乏用户友好和成本效益高的技术，这些技术可以广泛用于评估土壤中的氨基酸及其在自然土壤中的指纹。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的组成/指纹图谱，并测量它们对气候和土壤因素的响应。鉴于氨基酸在生化性质上明显不同的明确事实，每一种氨基酸都需要不同的膜结合载体来促进其摄取和运输。因此，不仅要了解土壤AAs的全有效性，而且要了解它们的组成。我们将利用高效液相色谱的最新进展来开发快速、准确和负担得起的土壤AA谱测量方法。拟议的研究应该使目前专门的分析化学技术更容易在生物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目前正在减缓我们表征土壤AAs信息并将其整合到陆地N循环模型中的能力的技术障碍。

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.