Quantitative gas chromatographic analysis of volatile fatty acids in spent culture media and body fluids.

Gas chromatographic analysis of volatile fatty acids for identification of obligately anaerobic bacteria and for presumptive diagnosis of anaerobic infections is now widely practiced. However, it is difficult to compare data because only a qualitative analysis is done or only chromatograms are presented instead of quantitative data on volatile fatty acid production. We compared three stationary phases for volatile fatty acid analysis of aqueous solutions and four methods of pretreating samples for gas chromatography. Quantitative analysis could be done accurately by using Carbowax as the stationary phase after pretreatment of spent culture media with Dowex columns. If only qualitative analysis is required (e.g., for presumptive diagnosis of anaerobic infections), ether extraction and headspace analysis are equally suitable. The overall variation coefficient for volatile fatty acid production by four reference strains of obligately anaerobic bacteria after 24 h of incubation was approximately 10%.