Isolation, Purification, and Cultivation of Toxigenic Cyanobacteria

Clonal strains of toxigenic cyanobacteria isolated from a natural bloom and maintained in culture have provided the basic material for the development of molecular methods. Knowledge in how to isolate and maintain a clonal culture of any toxigenic cyanobacterium is therefore a principal component for the many molecular approaches presented in this handbook. The chapter therefore summarizes the most commonly used methods for isolation, purification and cultivation of toxic cyanobacteria. The aim is to give general advice in how to isolate and maintain clonal cyanobacterial cultures in order to use them in genetic studies. The belonging SOPs describe in detail the methods for isolation, purification and clonal isolate testing (SOP 3.1), isolation of picocyanobacterial cells by flow cytometer (FCM) sorting (SOP 3.2), axenisation (SOP 3.3), preparation of culture media (solid and liquid) (SOP 3.4), strain maintenance of living cultures (SOP 3.5) and cryopreservation and recovery (SOP 3.6).