Cryogenic storage of C. elegans stocks for molecular genetic research

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Long term cryogenic storage facilities are an essential resource for short term and long term storage of our C. elegans strains, large collection of fosmids, cosmids, a C. elegans ORFeome library, and an effectively complete C. elegans RNAi library. C. elegans can be stored for many years (at least 30 years) and recovered for further analysis, which has been a key reason why C. elegans has been widely used in important biomedical research projects and major biological discoveries. In addition, frozen strains do not undergo DNA replication thereby lowering a probability of accumulating unwanted mutations as can happen when strains are maintained for long periods on plates. The number of strains generated and stored by the three applicants is on the order of 13,000 with new strains being generated continuously. The large collection of strains, which has been established since the nematode C. elegans was identified as a model organism in the early 1970s, by itself represents a precious resource for research and discovery for the applicants, as well as C. elegans researchers in Canada and abroad. Maintaining these strains without adequate cryogenic storage would be expensive, formidable, and risky since many precious strains could be lost. We three research groups together request funds for an ultra-low temperature refrigerator and two liquid Nitrogen storage tanks to replace our ultra-low temperature refrigerators, which are approaching the end of their expected life-spans, and to store newly generated C. elegans strains and many thousands of molecular DNA constructs. The current cryogenic storage facilities for all three laboratories are filled close to their capacities and in addition, the loss of an ultra-low temperature freezer without a storage facility to move strains to would result in the loss of a large number of valuable strains accumulated over many years.