Public germplasm collections and revolutions in biotechnology

Dugan, Frank M.; Wiest, Aricand; McCluskey, Kevin

doi:10.1007/s12038-011-9060-y

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This is similar to the challenges faced by exchange of mammalian cell lines (ASN-2010). A myriad of examples of the impact of shared resources demonstrate the value in terms of research reproducibility (Vasilevsky et al 2013;Collins and Tabak 2014) and contributions to improving the human condition (Dugan et al 2011;Furman and Stern 2011). The long-term nature of research repositories of every type underscores the fact that value may be separated from the immediate cost and emphasizes the benefit of maintaining such resources (Stern 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of the status of living collections for plant, environmental, and microbial research

et al. 2017

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While living collections are critical for biological research, support for these foundational infrastructure elements is inconsistent, which makes quality control, regulatory compliance, and reproducibility difficult. In recent years, the Ecological Society of America has hosted several National Science Foundation-sponsored workshops to explore and enhance the sustainability of biological research infrastructure. At the same time, the United States Culture Collection Network has brought together managers of living collections to foster collaboration and information exchange within a specific living collections community. To assess the sustainability of collections, a survey was distributed to collection scientists whose responses provide a benchmark for evaluating the resiliency of these collections. Among the key observations were that plant collections have larger staffing requirements and that living microbe collections were the most vulnerable to retirements or other disruptions. Many higher plant and vertebrate collections have institutional support and several have endowments. Other collections depend on competitive grant support in an era of intense competition for these resources. Opportunities for synergy among living collections depend upon complementing the natural strong engagement with the research communities that depend on these collections with enhanced information sharing, communication, and collective action to keep them sustainable for the future. External efforts by funding agencies and publishers could reinforce the advantages of having professional management of research resources across every discipline.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of the status of living collections for plant, environmental, and microbial research

et al. 2017

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“…This research highlights the importance of germplasm collections, especially collections of wild cereal species and landraces that were critical for launching many of the biggest biotechnological revolutions of the 20th century (Dugan et al ., ). These collections are in essence insurance policies for the future (Wilkes, ) in terms of not only plant traits but also the microorganisms they harbour (Wilson et al ., Sachs, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutualistic fungal endophytes in theTriticeae- survey and description

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et al. 2014

FEMS Microbiol Ecol

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Grasses of the tribe Triticeae were screened to determine the presence of mutualistic epichloae fungal endophytes. Over 1500 accessions, from more than 250 species, encompassing 22 genera within the Triticeae were screened using immunodetection and direct staining/microscopy techniques. Only two genera, Elymus and Hordeum, were identified as harbouring epichloae endophytes with accessions native to a range of countries including Canada, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia and the USA. Genetic analysis based on simple sequence repeat data revealed that the majority of endophytes cluster according to geographical regions rather than to host species; many strains isolated from Hordeum grouped with those derived from Elymus, and amongst the Elymus-derived strains, there was no clear correspondence between clustering topology and host species. This is the first detailed survey demonstrating the genetic diversity of epichloae endophytes within the Triticeae and highlights the importance of germplasm centres for not only preserving the genetic diversity of plant species but also the beneficial microorganisms they may contain.

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