AuthenticAtion of ProkAryotes At Atcc

When a new strain arrives at ATCC, the goal is to ensure it matches the depositor’s description, that it is pure and that its classification is consistent with the description. Once the strain becomes a catalog item, our goal is to ensure that the item does not change; subsequent passage of the strain is minimized so that its description is always consistent with the original description. The work done to meet these goals is known as authentication (Figure 1), and here we provide an overview of the authentication process at ATCC.