Tung-Hai Algal Lab Culture Collection

Tung-Hai Algal Lab (THAL) Culture Collection

This is a list of the culture collection of Cyanidiales and other microalgae isolated from different geothermal areas in the West Pacific Island Chain, the first chain. During our experiments, we frequently encountered mixed contamination, which resulted from the combination of two different algal species or strains instead of fungi and bacteria. One of the reasons for this issue may be the adhesion of two mixed strains using only a plate streaking isolation procedure (i.e., the initial isolation). To address this, we purified the culture strains from the initial isolation by using a plate streaking isolation followed by a serial dilution (i.e., the first-time purification). After purification, we picked a single colony and transferred it to sloped agar in a test tube for long-term culture storage. After every physiological experiment, we washed the purified strain from the test tube and repeated the above-mentioned isolation process (i.e., the second-time purification, and so on). We followed the same procedure for those obtained from other culture centers. Additionally, after each purification step, including the initial isolation and first-time purification, we molecularly barcoded the identity of the strain using rbcL to ensure that the target strain was not contaminated. For the purification procedure described above, we conducted the purification process for each strain at a time in a laminar flow chamber treated with 70% EtOH and overnight UV light (i.e., one working day per strain). By doing so, we ensured that the cultured strain was pure in terms of a single algal species (i.e., isogenic strain) without any contamination of other algae, fungi, and bacteria. 

I. Isolated cyanidia strains in the THAL culture collection

II. Strains obtained from other culture centers

 Relevant Publications