A Review of Living Collections with Special Emphasis on Sustainability and Its Impact on Research Across Multiple Disciplines

Abstract

Formal living collections have unique characteristics that distinguish them from other types of biorepositories. Comprising diverse resources, microbe culture collections, crop and biodiversity plant germplasm collections, and animal germplasm repositories are commonly allied with specific research communities or stakeholder groups. Among living collections, microbial culture collections have very long and unique life histories, with some being older than 100 years. Regulatory, financial, and technical developments have impacted living collections in many ways. International treaty obligations and restrictions on release of genetically modified organisms complicate the activities of living collections. Funding for living collections is a continuing challenge and threatens to create a two-tier system where medically relevant collections are well funded and all other collections are underfunded and hence understaffed. Molecular, genetic, and whole genome sequence analysis of contents of microbes and other living resource collections bring additional value to living collections.

The challenges faced by living stock collections in the USA

“…The outcome of reduced support for living stock collections is disproportionately borne by small institutions, students and researchers in areas not tied to human health or other research systems with high economic impact (Mccluskey, 2017). By way of contrast, even modest support for living collections pays dividends to public, academic and scientific communities in many different ways.…”

“…Living collections benefit from public support to ensure that valuable resources for research in every area of biology are available to future generations of scientists (Mccluskey, 2017). While some medical and agricultural collections receive public funds, many public biodiversity and genetics collections do not.…”

Phototrophic co-cultures from extreme environments: community structure and potential value for fundamental and applied research

“…Culture collections provide the possibility of preserving microbial isolates over extended periods of time without introducing significant genetic changes 15 and they facilitate open access to these isolates and their associated metadata 16 . Hence co-culture repositories represent a promising starting point for developing and testing techniques to study and manipulate uncultivated microbes.…”

Biotechnology and Bioprocesses: Their Contribution to Sustainability

“…Molecular and genetic characterizations of living collections of biological resources provide added value to these biorepositories. As a consequence, their development has technical, financial, and regulatory implications to address depending on the type of collection (microbial cultures and animal or plant germplasm) [36].Acetic acid bacteria are an interesting group of organisms with potential for the generation of diverse metabolites of industrial application based on sustainable processes; however, current processes still have limitations to address large-scale industrial demand [37]. Another example is the development of yeasts that produce high amounts of glutathione to be used in drugs, cosmetics, and foods; in the wine production industry, the antioxidant effect of glutathione and its action against unwanted aromatic compounds are particularly adequate [38].As can be appreciated, the impact of biotechnology on social welfare is evident and has been widely discussed.…”