Flash pyrolysis - a rapid method for screening bacterial species for the presence of bacteriohopanepolyols

Flash pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) was applied to freeze dried cells of eleven bacterial species. Six species known to synthesise bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs) were found to produce easily identifiable C27-C35 hopenes and hopanes upon flash pyrolysis. These compounds could not be observed in the pyrolysis products of five species, two of which are known not to produce BHPs. In the search for BHP-containing bacteria this rapid screening approach prevents unnecessary time-consuming laboratory work to characterise species that would produce negative results.