[ExpertScie]

Preservation of valuable microbial cultures is one of the important aspects of various industries including in prevention of biodeterioration and use of microbial cultures in fermentation industries. Microbial cultures which have valuable properties like high yielding genes, high quality bio-molecule producing potential are preserved for long time and are used as and when required. They are removed from preservation conditions and are used as per the production schedules and market pulls. First of all screening of cultures for potential is done in which cultures with high quantity productions capabilities are isolated. This screening is critical process and need high technical skills. This skill includes knowledge of identification of morphology and anatomy of microorganism which has co-relation with required cultures. Once such morphological characteristics are identified, they need to known its anatomy and other metabolic characteristics. Once such good quality cultures are identified using their morphological and anatomical characteristics, they are further screened for their production capabilities.
In an industry which does antibiotic production, antibiotic titers are calculated using various analytical tests. This analysis includes use of various sophisticated instruments like HPLC, GC, UV-Spectrophotometer, IR spectrophotometer. In HPLC that is high performance liquid chromatography, separation of bio-molecules is done such that the one of interest is identified and further its quantitative test is performed to know the potential of yield of end product. The titer between various isolated cultures gives clear idea of their potential and quality.
Few examples of such fermentation industries are antibiotic production, semi-synthetic products, bio fertilizers and many such other by-products. This way once the required high yielding isolated are identified using screening techniques, they are sub-cultured and preserved under liquid nitrogen or by lyophilization and kept in deep freezers.