Procedure for Strain and Plasmid Deposits to the Dicty Stock Center

The Dicty Stock Center can accept strains as axenic cultures, frozen cells, colonies on lawns of bacteria, lyophilized spores, or spores in silica gel. If strains are sent on plates, please identify the medium and the bacterial strain that were used. Plasmids can be deposited as either DNA or as a transformed bacterial culture (please identify bacteria).

A primary reference is needed with each deposit. This information should include the parental strain, mutagenesis method, plasmid used (if it was a REMI mutant or homologous recombinant), phenotype, genotype, and anything unusual that is known about the strain. For plasmids we need a map and a sequence, if available.

In the case of knockout mutants, we also would like the parental strain and the knockout plasmid.

Deposits should be sent to:

Jakob Franke
Columbia University
Dept. Pathology Cell Biol.
3959 Broadway, BHS T-19
New York, NY 10032


Tel. (212) 342-0178

The Dicty Stock Center FedEx account can be charged to submit strains. Please contact Jakob Franke (email: jf31@columbia.edu) to request the account number.

Additional Shipping Information

Axenic cultures should be sent in a box, rather than in an envelope or FedEx "Pak".

For international shipments, we have found that it is important to stress on shipping labels and customs forms that Dictyostelium, the bacteria on which it grows, and the bacterial strains carrying plasmids, are non-pathogenic, harmless research organisms, and that the shipment is triple packaged and contains no animal or plant products. Customs also requires a value for the shipments. We use a $10 value.