This award provides support for the transfer of type and other strains of methanogenic and syntrophic bacteria, and other fastidiously strict anaerobic bacteria from the Oregon Collection of Methanogens (OCM) to the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), which operates one of the largest and most important collections of bacteria in the US and elsewhere. Following the transfer, the Oregon Collection of Methanogens will cease due to the imminent retirement of the director, who is principal investigator of this award. The ATCC bacteriology collection currently includes over 20000 strains, but contains few strains of the types found in the Oregon collection. Such strains are unusually difficult to culture, store and distribute. In addition to the OCM, only one collection, the German national collection (Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH) presently includes substantial numbers of these microbes. The intellectual value of the proposed activity is the preservation of strains and of the standardized methods for the growth, storage and distribution of these strictly anaerobic bacteria that have been employed by OCM. The broader impacts of this project are the secure storage of stock cultures of methanogenic and other anaerobic bacteria at ATCC, thereby facilitating the distribution of these strains to laboratories in the United States and enhancing prospects for their future availability.
