Infectious Disease Research Center (IDRC) Culture Collection and Megabanque relational database.
The Infectious Diseases Research Center Culture Collection of Université Laval is registered as WDCM861 at the World Data Center for Microorganisms (WDCM) and has been officially assigned the acronym CCRI to identify all strains in our collection. This unique identifier facilitates the exchange of strains with our collaborators and ensures proper citation and referencing of our strains by the scientific community.
The CCRI holds over 20,000 microbial strains including 852 bacterial species, 553 of which are human pathogens, 87 fungal species, 67 of which are human fungal pathogens. We also have 14 viral species covering mainly human respiratory pathogens.
Human Microbiota Collection
To maintain an adequate inventory of the thousands of strains in our collection, we have built a relational database linking strain information, phenotypes, resistance profiles, genotypes and sequence data. This database named Megabanque is hosted on a MySQL database server located in our laboratory at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval research center. This allows quick access to the data via a simple interface that can be customized according to the needs of each user. It also ensures secure data sharing, control over the data accessible to each user and validation of data entry. The relational database can be linked to other public or private databases and to various analysis tools. This allows the reorganization of sequence data files corresponding to specific strains according to different taxonomic levels such as species, genera and families or based on characteristics such as Gram staining or strain origin.
CCRI strains are identified by phenotypic methods and their antibiotic susceptibility profiles are determined according to standardized protocols written and validated in a quality system with requirements comparable to the highest standards of the pharmaceutical industry. Genetic identification based on 16S rDNA sequence as well as on genes coding for conserved proteins and complete genomes is also routinely practiced. We have also detected and sequenced resistance genes or mutations for several strains in our collection. All sequence data were acquired under standardized protocols and the quality of the sequence and annotations was reviewed by at least two qualified staff members. All strains are stored at least in duplicate at -80°C and, in addition, many strains are also preserved by lyophilization to ensure long-term storage stability. This could be of primary importance for proteomics and gene expression profiling experiments. Specially trained personnel maintain the collection following strict rules. This minimizes strain mismanagement, ensures proper identification, and validates data recording. The quality system requirements also allow for the continuous correction of errors under the supervision of colleagues and superiors.
Maurice Boissinot Curator of the CCRI