Often you can’t be around to continue a weekly replate of your bacteria so its good to store some in the fridge or freezer to be revived when you need them again.

Here in the WetLab we have Slime Mould, JL (fullname), MR (fullname), ML (fullname) and now that the BioHack Academy is nearly over we need to store some of the bacteria for when someone needs it.

I found a simple protocol here which explains the process in a very simple way.

This is for the bacteria JL, MR, ML , for the slime mould we are going to try dry it out on coffee filter paper (which was sterilised). We used a 30% Glycerol solution which was pipetted into 2ml centrifuge tubes. Scraped the bacteria off the agar plate, about 1/4 of a plate (i dont think you need too much) and mixed it in the tube with the solution. In hindsight I think we should’ve used the vortex to mix the bacteria through evenly. but we’ll only know when its defrosted and replated. We use a glycerol solution because the ice crystals that form in water can damage the small bacteria.

Slime mould

To dry out the slime mould I sterilised coffee filter paper cut into square for the slime mould to grow onto. once the have moved onto the paper we will air dry them slowly. This should allow for the slime mould to go into a dormant stage. Our current batch of slime mould in the lab came from a piece that was dried out. To revive it we plated in on a heavy oat and agar mix:

12g oats 3g agar 200ml water

over the weekend they came ‘alive’ and started to spread themselves

Slime mould