Preservation of cultures?

[Bertil Lindstrom]

So, is it maybe "castor oil" or something similar?


/Bertil


On 20 Mar 2003 09:18:29 -0000, please_post at noreply.com wrote:

>Bertil wrote:
>> Hi out there!
>
>> How do I preserve the cultures for future use?
>> I have read about deepfreezing in liquid nitrogen, but that is out of
>> the question -:)
>
>> Somewhere else (Stamets ?) talks about storing cultures in "mineral
>> oil". 
>
>> Now what excatly is "mineral oil"? Ordinary motor oil or cooking oil
>> or some special oil?
>
>You can find it in the pharmacy section
>of almost any grocer, near the hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, witch
>hazel, etc. I think, medically speaking, it's used as a laxative.
>
>> Is there any other cheep ways of storing live cultures?
>
>Mineral oil is the cheap route.  Grow the strains you want to
>preserve in MEA-filled culture tubes, then add enough minerail oil to
>cover them.  Place  the culture tubes in cold storage at just over
>freezing (I think 36F is recommended.)  You may be able to keep them
>in the fridge, for example.  If you're going to do this somewhere that
>isn't perfectly temperature-regulated, though, make a few backups and
>distribute them to other people for holding in their fridges as well.
>
>to that if you don't hold it ope
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>> /Bertil
>