THE APPLICATION PROGRESS OF LADDERANE LIPIDS AS BIOMARKERS ON THE STUDY OF MARINE ANAEROBIC AMMONIUM OXIDATION

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox), is the anaerobic oxidation of ammonium with nitrite as the electron acceptor, resulted ing in the release of N₂. 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.