Procedure for Strain and Plasmid Deposits to the Dicty Stock Center

The Dicty Stock Center can accept Dictyostelium strains, plasmids, and other materials relevant for research using Dictyostelium such as antibodies and cDNA or genomic libraries.

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Depositing Dictyostelium strains

Dictyostelium strains can be sent 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. In the case of knockout mutants, we also would like the parental strain and the knockout plasmid.

A Strain Deposit Form must be filled for each plasmid deposited and emailed to the Stock Center prior to shipping.

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Depositing plasmids

Plasmids can be deposited as either DNA or as a transformed bacterial culture (preferred).

A Plasmid Deposit Form must be filled for each plasmid deposited and emailed to the Stock Center prior to shipping.

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Depositing other materials

Please contact the Dicty Stock Center if you would like to deposit other materials.

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Mailing address

Deposits should be sent to:

Olivia Martin
Dicty Stock Center, Northwestern University
Simpson Querrey 5-500
303 E Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60611
Tel. (312) 503-4169

The Dicty Stock Center FedEx account can be charged to submit strains.
Please email the DSC staff to request the account number.

Additional Shipping Information

To comply with postal regulations, submitted items should be triple packaged. We have found that sealing lids with paraffin film, wrapping items in plastic wrap, next wrapping items in a bench pad, and then putting everything into a plastic bag keeps biological material well contained. Bubble wrapping of shipments helps keep items from getting crushed in the mail.

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.