Poor enzyme recovery by extraction from soils

The extraction of enzymes from soil would be an ideal way to measure various soil enzyme activities. This method would be especially useful for determining activities in small volumes (i.e. microtiter plates). Compared to incubation of bulk soil with buffer, an extract is more convenient to handle and more homogenous when working with small volume samples. In this study an attempt was made to extract enzymes from two different soil samples using various buffers. The efficacy and reliability of the extraction differed regarding the buffer composition and concentration, and varied from soil to soil. In general, only a few percent of the enzyme activity of whole soil was observed in the extracts, indicating the need to use whole soil samples in enzyme assays.