For most people, storing about 40-60 different cultigens on agar plates can get out of hand! Rotating plates to keep a retail menu is challenging work to keep everything on point. Losing plates to long environmental exposures, natural pinning, and contamination is frustrating. Is sterile centrifuge lab tube storing the obvious answer? What if you could store 50-100 cultigens in a small 5x5x2 box?
What we are going to present is the idea of becoming familiar with sterile tube storage and genetic products. Making it more ideal for a hobbyist to isolate phenotypes, by collecting their favorite cultigens. Updating storage methods for maximizing space in a small lab. And saving the vendors and buyers time and money. So, let us get into the centrifuge store and products!
These lab tubes come in about any size you could think of but, what we are going for is consolidation of genetic libraries. Here we use 2mL tubing with a safety snap lid filled is pressured treated distilled water to suspend agar segments in a tiny sterile environment. Like a SCOBY hotel if you do not know what that is, do a google search on images and behold the entertaining mass of bacteria and yeast.
The sections were taken using the best agar punch tool on the market by @myco_plunge . A lab grade glass agar punch that is handmade with borosilicate glass, ideal for the elevated temperature sterilization of open flame with the benefits of the high thermal expansion rate of the glass. Meaning that the glass can adjust to quick fluctuations in temperatures, like going from 400 degrees to 70 degrees without the glass exploding or cracking. Trust me, use the tools of a professional and you will learn to become one, it is a mind set and attitude. These tools are the future for myology hobbyists and enthusiasts. Another plus of using these tools is the amount of transfer one can get per plate significantly increases and becomes more fluent with the process.
The tube is partially filled with distilled water to help avoid air bubbles, after the agar sections are taken, they are transferred to the tubes that sit on a centrifuge rack or box. After the desired amounts of agar sections are interested into the tube, it is topped off with more sterile water before being closed, labeled, and stored in the appropriate enclosure. We have stored these centrifuge tubes and rejuvenated cultures stored over 2 years, in the refrigerator with temperatures no lower the 40 degrees. Below is a photo of 3 segments being transferred to agar after being stored in a centrifuge tube.
At Myceli Unlimiti we do not store any live cultures lower than 40 degrees but there are many other methods of labs using extremely low temperatures to cryo freeze cultures. If this is something that interests you, you search keywords “glycerol centrifuge storage”, this does require a specific setup but nonetheless another fun research project.
When the stored cultigen is ready to be used, the tubes are removed from the storage unit and enclosure. Working in front of your sterile system whether it be a Still Air Box (SAB) or flow hood the tube is brought to temperature. We let them sit for about 2-4 hours to lose the initial low temperature before removing the desired agar sections and introducing them to your sterile nutritional petri dish medium. We will soon be offereing on the website, is the option to add centrifuge storage to your genetics investments or genetic centrifuge products. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter below to stay connected on the release of these future products.
Will you be using centrifuge tubes in the future ? Or would you like to purchase genetics products that also offer storage options?