Assessing biodeterioration in wood using ATP photometry: Part I. Nucleotide extraction and wood interference

The efficiency of six different extraction methods (boiling tris buffer, boiling EtOH, boiling NaHCO₃, perchloric acid, trichloroacetic acid, and Extralight®) to extract ATP from the mycelium of the wood decaying fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium was measured. The ATP concentration of the sample was measured using the firefly luciferin/luciferase assay. The most efficient method (ATP = 3.45 x 10^-9 moles/mg dw) was extraction with cold 5% TCA for 20 h. After the extraction, the TCA was removed with ether-saturated water. Although the amount of ATP extracted with boiling ethanol was not significantly different from that by TCA (ATP=3.06 x 10^-9 moles/mg dw), TCA was chosen over ethanol due to the potential hazards involved in boiling ethanol. The efficiency of extraction was the same for both birch and loblolly pine.