title: Quantitation of ergosterol in river sediment by liquid chromatography.
abstract: The ergosterol content of a river sediment can be used as an indicator of fungal activity. A method is developed for the extraction and determination of ergosterol in river sediment as part of a study to assess the correlation between fungal activity and biodegradation of pyrene, which is an environmental pollutant. This method is based on saponification and the liquid-liquid extraction of ergosterol by ethyl acetate. Quantitation and detection are performed isocratically by liquid chromatography on a 5-microm Hypersil C18 column with methanol-acetonitrile (80:20, v/v) as the mobile phase and detection at 282 nm. The detection limit is 50 ng/mL ergosterol, which is equivalent to 0.1 microg/g. The recovery of ergosterol at a concentration level in the range of 2 to 12 microg/mL is 91.7% +/- 3.1% without interferences. This method is applied in order to successfully quantitate the ergosterol content in a river sediment with or without a fungus supply.
authors.affiliation: Groupe pour l'Etude du Devenir des Xénobiotiques dans l'Environnement, Université J. Fourier, UFR de Pharmacie de Grenoble, La Tronche, France. corinne.ravelet@ujf-grenoble.fr
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ravelet
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grosset
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alary
mesh_terms: D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004875:Ergosterol / Q000032:analysis*; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D004875:Ergosterol