Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute: Culture collections and databases

The Collection and databases facility of WI-KNAW maintains two important collections of microbes: the world-renowned CBS Collection for filamentous fungi and yeasts, founded in 1904 and one of the oldest and largest culture collections for fungi in the world; and the NCCB collection, a historically important collection of wild-type and mutant bacterial strains and phages.

Its holdings cover a broad range of the culturable fungal diversity, with strains originating from various habitats on all continents and in the seas, and over 16 000 type strains that serve as important references for taxonomy. Yearly, 4 000 – 6 000 strains are supplied to requestors in around 50 countries for research and development, and 2 000 – 3 000 new strains are deposited from various origin and substrates. All strains are DNA sequenced for quality control and identification purposes, the fungi mostly by ITS and LSU rDNA, and bacteria by (partial) 16S. New data including on physiology, mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF) and other data are continuously generated and linked to the strains. For many strains whole genome sequences are also available.

• 100 000 strains of filamentous fungi and yeasts in CBS
• 10 000 strains of bacteria and actinobacteria, and 560 phages in NCCB
• Strains are preserved in a metabolically inactive state, by lyophilization (freeze-drying) and cryopreservation. A smaller part is also actively kept on agar media.
• Online databases providing open (meta)data to search strains and to perform analyses
• Supply of cultures in active state on agar media, as freeze-dried ampoules or genomic DNA extracts
• Deposit of novel living strains in the public collections (free-of-charge, acceptance pending quality and compliance checks)
• International Depository under the Budapest Treaty (patent strains, fee charged)
• Safe deposit service (fee charged periodically)
• Quality assurance according to ISO 9001