Abstract:
Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox), is the anaerobic oxidation of ammonium with nitrite as the electron acceptor, resulted ing in the release of N
2. It plays an important role in the marine nitrogen cycle, and the processes taking e place in the anammoxosome, a membrane-bound intracytoplasmic compartment of anammox bacteria. Ladderane lipids, specific membrane lipids and biomarkers unique to anammox bacteria, have so far been successfully applied for to the study of marine anammox/nitrogen cycle. In this paper, the discovery of anammox, the classification of anammox bacteria and the structure as well as properties of ladderane lipids were briefly introduced; the factors on the contents and distributions of these lipids, such as dissolved oxygen, nutrient, temperature and water depth were summarized; some reports on the application of ladderane lipids were also given. Though there were few studies on the reconstruction of ancient marine anammox/nitrogen circle using ladderane lipids as biomarkers, these lipids still showed great potential in these respects.