A Cost-effective Technique of Yeast Stock Culture Maintenance in Laboratory

Maintenance of stock cultures of yeast is essential in all mycology laboratories for quality control. Among several methods proposed for maintaining yeast culture collections, periodic subculture on agar slopes is most commonly adopted. In an attempt to reduce cost of preservation of yeast cultures, we evaluated a simple modification of agar slope stock culture technique where 20 strains of yeasts were inoculated in 20 separate quadrants on Sabouraud Dextrose agar plates. In this study, performance of conventional and modified method were compared for 93 yeast strains. We found this modified method allowed simultaneous short term preservation of 20 isolates without compromising purity, viability and classic properties and showed results comparable to conventional agar slope stock culture. This approach will significantly reduce the cost of yeast culture maintenance which is especially relevant in developing countries.