GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY STUDIES ON THE OCCURRENCE OF ACETAMIDE, PROPIONAMIDE, AND FURFURYL ALCOHOL IN PYROLYZATES OF BACTERIA, BACTERIAL FRACTIONS, AND MODEL COMPOUNDS

Fused-siica capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was employed to investigate the production of several bacterial pyrolysis products, including acetamide, propionamide and furfuryl alcohol. A variety of model comounds, selected for their similarity with bacterial structures, were pyrolyzed and amounts of these pyrolysis products were quantitatively determined. Model compounds included several analogs of muramyl dipeptide differing in chain length at the lactyl-peptide bridge and several neutral and amino sugars, amino acids and nucleic acids. Bacterial cell walls and whole microbial cells were also analyzed. Measurment of the amounts of a few chemically identified pyrolysis products provides some chemotaxonomic differentiation of microorganisms, as demonstrated by the pyrolysis of a group of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria (including samples of Legionella pneumophla) and fungi.