Location: Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research
Project Number: 5010-22410-025-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Mar 6, 2023
End Date: Mar 5, 2028
Objective:
The major goals of this project will be most effectively achieved through strengthening the relationship between the ARS Culture Collection and the user community and fostering a synergistic relationship. To this end, we will implement a “virtuous cycle” of collection management (Graphical Project Summary) to achieve the project goals and enhance our connection to the user community.
Objective 1: Acquire, distribute, back-up, and maintain the safety, genetic integrity, health, and viability of priority microbial genetic resources and associated descriptive information in the ARS Culture Collection.
Sub-objective 1.A: Maintain the safety, genetic integrity, viability and accessibility of priority microbial genetic resources and associated information in the ARS Culture Collection.
Sub-objective 1.B: Enhance the diversity and utility of the ARS Culture Collection by acquiring germplasm representing type material or novel strains important to ARS and other microbial research programs.
Objective 2: Increase the value of priority microbial resources in the ARS Culture Collection for research and development by conducting integrated phylogenetic, physiological, phenotypic, and metabolomic analyses. Connect these multiple data types to accession records in the ARS Culture Collection, and deposit in appropriate public databases.
Sub-objective 2.A: Characterize 2,500 priority strains of bacteria and fungi.
Sub-objective 2.B: Update the metadata on strains in the ARS Culture Collection using the Ag Data Commons website to facilitate research by ARS and other scientists worldwide.
Approach:
More than 98,000 accessions consisting of microbial cultures of agriculturally, industrially, and medically important bacteria and fungi will be maintained in a secure centralized limited-access facility. These microbial genetic resources will be effectively preserved and secured, characterized to improve their utility, taxonomic accuracy, and made available to support agricultural and other research projects worldwide. In addition to maintaining and distributing currently held strains, high priority microbial genetic resources will be acquired and safeguarded so that these critical resources are widely available for microbial research and development. Microbial cultures will be characterized with a combination of genetic, genomic, metabolomic, and phenotypic approaches and analyses to elucidate their phylogenetic relationships, secondary metabolite profiles, ensure accurate species identification, and enhance their utility for research and development.
