title: Safeguarding bacterial resources promotes biotechnological innovation.
abstract: Environmental research delivers valuable bacterial resources for biotechnology. We believe that systematic long-term preservation of bacteria will promote future biotechnological innovations, by safeguarding the accessibility of bacteria already recognized to have interesting features and providing a "pool" of bacterial resources for novel applied research. To this end, we want to advocate the incorporation of preservation tests in environmental or applied microbiological research. This paper introduces non-specialists to different preservation methods for bacteria. Several parameters that influence long-term storage of bacterial resources are explained and practical tips and guidelines are formulated. Also, the vital role of public culture collections is highlighted and the state-of-the-art of preservation of non-pure cultures is described.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Ghent University, KL Ledeganckstraat 35, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. kim.heylen@ugent.be
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Heylen
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hoefman
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vekeman
authors.forename: Jindrich
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Peiren
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Vos
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000378:metabolism*; D044822:Biodiversity; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D011309:Preservation, Biological / Q000379:methods*