Microbial Resource Centers Towards Harnessing Microbial Diversity for Human Welfare

Abstract

Microbes are known to play an important role in numerous metabolic processes like nutrient cycling, environmental detoxification, production of antibiotics, vitamins, industrial enzymes etc. Therefore it is important to efficiently harness and utilize the biologically important properties of microbes and their products to tackle the ever growing challenges of food security, healthcare and environmental pollution. A complete knowledge of these microbes with respect to the role played by them in ecosystem function is essential to fully exploit them for the benefit of mankind. Unfortunately only 4–5% of the microbes have been explored so far whereas the rest ≈95% is are still un-culturable. A number of uncertainties still exist with respect to the microbial diversity as knowledge regarding the number of species of microorganisms that exist, their distribution, stability in the environment and the important roles played by them are lacking to a greater extent. Microbial diversity is an unseen global resource that deserves to be conserved and utilized judiciously. Microbial resource centers play an important role in this regard as they act as living libraries holding microorganisms. The primary function of these centers is to collect, maintain and distribute microbial strains and/or their products to researchers and industrialists all over the world. The role of microbial Culture Collections with respect to conservation and propagation of microbial resources and the difficulties and uncertainties of conservation faced are discussed.