StrainInfo introduces electronic passports for microorganisms

Microbiology builds upon biological material deposited in biological resource centers (BRCs) as a reference framework for collaborative research. BRCs assign so-called strain numbers to label the deposited material and are responsible for long-term preservation and worldwide distribution of the material. Cultured microorganisms can be deposited into multiple BRCs and BRCs also mutually exchange their holdings. As a result, many different strain numbers can be attached to biological material that stems from the same isolate. In practice, this material is considered equivalent and used interchangeably. This implies that finding information on given biological material requires all equivalent strain numbers to be used when searching.