LIANG, C., PEDERSEN, J. A. & BALSER, T. C. (2009) Aminoglycoside antibiotics may interfere with microbial amino sugar analysis. Journal of Chromatography A, 1216, 5296-5301.

Abstract
The amino sugars (e.g.,glucosamine, galactosamine, mannosamine, muramicacid) in soils are frequently employed as biomarkers of microbial residues. The analysis of amino sugars in environmental matrices, however, is expected to be more complicated than their determination in isolated microbial cells. In this study, we employed a widely used protocol for amino sugar analysis, and found that some amino glycoside antibiotics interfere with amino sugar quantification invitro. The method converts the amino glycosides to compounds that coelute with the aldononitrile acetate derivatives of the amino sugars. Specifically, streptomycin significantly interferes with muramicacid analysis, and kanamycin, tobramycin and amikacin hamper glucosamine measurement. Mass spectrometry confirmed that the interfering compounds from aminoglycosides are not actually genuine microbial amino sugar monomers (bacterial muramic acid or fungal glucosamine), and are most likely to be N-methylglucosamine or 3-amino-3-deoxy-glucopyranose. In contrast to their effects on muramic acid and glucosamine analyses, aminoglycosides do not interfere with galactosamine and mannosamin equantification. The few data that exist on the environmental occurrence of aminoglycoside antibiotics suggest they occur at only trace levels. Our findings may have implications for the qualitative and quantitative validity of results from amino sugar assays in some context. Application of the aldononitrile acetate derivatization method to samples (especially in selective microbial cultures using aminoglycosides as inhibitors) requires that potential interference be evaluated.