The National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria includes thousands of strains that are environmentally important, and industrially useful. Since we have been celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of our culture collection this year, we thought it would be interesting to have a look and see what some of the strains within it have been up to over the years. So just for fun, we did a bit of searching and compiled the following “top ten most cited NCIMB strains” that gives a flavour of how some of the strains in our collection have been used and studied.
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Starting off at number ten we have the denitrifying NCIMB 11015 Achromobacter xylosoxidans with its two azurins – these are copper containing proteins that are involved in electron transfer. |
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NCIMB 10007 Pseudomonas putida is the 9th most cited strain in our top ten. The camphor-degrading Baeyer-Villager monooxygenases from Pseudomonas putida have been described as being of interest for more than 40 years. |
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Number 8 is NCIMB 9867 Pseudomonas pseudoalcalgenes – highlighting that we have many fresh water, as well as marine strains in the collection. It is notable for using the gentisate pathway for aromatic hydrocarbon degradation and was isolated from river water in Hull. |
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In at number seven is Pseudomonas fluorescens. It exhibits the ability to grow with cyanide as the sole nitrogen source. |
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At six is NCIMB 13064 Rhodococcus erythropolis – reported to catalyse conversion of halogenated hydrocarbons to alcohols – it’s an attractive biocatalyst for remediation of gaseous effluents and was deposited at NCIMB by scientists at the Queens University of Belfast in 1990. |
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Number five in our top ten most cited NCIMB strains is the camphor degrading NCIMB 9784 Rhodococcus aetherivorans. The first example of a novel class of the enzyme #cytochrome P450 was reported to be found in this strain. It was deposited at NCIMB by scientists from the University of Hull in 1966. |
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At four – a marine Pseudoalteromonas sp. used in biofilm and corrosion studies. |
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The third most cited strain in our top ten is Lactobacillus Plantarum. This versatile strain has been used for research into biodegradable plastic production, probiotic foods and delivery of vaccinal epitopes in the gastrointestinal tract |
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At number 2 – Acinetobacter johnsonii - often studied with respect to Baeyer-Villiger oxidations, which convert ketones to esters and are of interest as a tool for organic synthesis. |
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In first place is NCIMB 8052 Clostridium beijerinckii, which has been used in many studies relating to fermentative production of acetone and butanol |
Of course this is just a snapshot of a few strains from what is an extensive and very diverse collection, and our strains have been used in all kinds of research projects and studies that aren’t represented in this list. We can’t wait to see what the latest additions to the collection will be used for in future!