The development of public culture collections of diatoms, polar cyanobacteria and mycobacteria and their further integration in the BCCM consortium.



- BCCM/DCG, diatom collection:

The BCCM/DCG public collection is a small but dedicated collection currently containing 195 diatom strains belonging to 23 species, and is the only culture collection worldwide specialized in diatoms, the most species-rich and ecologically important algal group.



- BCCM/ITM, mycobacteria collection:

The BCCM/ITM public collection currently maintains 150 strains of the Mycobacterium genus, representing 10 species.

The collection is hosted by the Mycobacteriology Unit of the Institute of Tropical Medicine. This laboratory has one of the largest and most diverse collections of well documented mycobacteria worldwide. BCCM/ITM will incorporate the most interesting strains from the ITM research collection into the BCCM/ITM public collection.



- BCCM/ULC, cyanobacteria collection:

The BCCM/ULC public collection has just started in February 2011 and maintains so far 45 Antarctic cyanobacterial strains, assigned to 15 morphospecies. The public collection includes the type strain of the newly described species, Plectolyngbya hodgsonii (Taton et al., Polar Biology, DOI 10.1007/s00300-010-0868-y).

The collection is hosted by the Centre for Protein Engineering of the University of Liège.

The host laboratory has one of the largest research collection of documented (sub)polar cyanobacteria worldwide, with more than 100 strains characterized by phenotypic (morphology based on microscopic observations) and genotypic (16S rRNA and ITS sequences) tests. The strains are unicyanobacterial, but not axenic. BCCM/ULC aims at incorporating the most interesting strains from the research collection of the host laboratory into the BCCM/ULC public collection.