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Adenosine Triphosphate in Lake Sediments: I. Determination¹

ABSTRACT

A modification of the luciferin-luciferase bioluminescence technique was developed for determining adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in sediments. The method involves extraction with cold H₂SO₄, clean up with a cation exchange resin and use of living Aerobacter aerogenes cells as an internal standard to correct for incomplete ATP recovery from the sediments. ATP recovery ranged from 20 to 85%, was a characteristic, reproducible property of a given sediment, but was not related consistently to any other sediment property. The detection limits of the method were about 0.05 µg ATP/g oven dry sediment but were dependent on the recovery characteristic of the sediment and the amounts of bioluminescence-inhibitory solutes present in the extract used for final ATP analysis. Precision was low at ATP levels approaching the detection limit, primarily because of the high coefficient of variation shown at low ATP concentrations (about 3 x 10^-10M for the instrumentation and luciferin-luciferase extracts used in this investigation). Theoretical considerations supported by preliminary experimental results indicate that the method should be applicable to soils as well as sediments. The ATP contents of nine sediment samples obtained from different lakes in Wisconsin ranged from 0.34 to 9.5 µg ATP/g sediment.

¹ Approved for publication by the Director of the Research Division, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences in cooperation with the Engineering Exp. Sta., Univ. of Wis. Supported in part by Office of Water Resources Research Project no. 14-01-0001-1961 (B-022-WIS) and in part by Federal Water Pollution Control Admin. Project no. WP-01470-01, administered through the Univ. of Wis. Water Resources Center. Presented in part before Div. S-3, Soil Science Society of America, Detroit. Mich., Nov. 10, 1969.

² Research Assistant, Associate Professor and Visiting Assistant Professor of Soils, Assistant Professor of Water Chemistry, and Assistant Professor of Soils, respectively, Univ. of Wis., Madison.

Received for publication April 17, 1970. Accepted for publication October 16, 1970.