Performing an upgraded and interoperable data management system for ITEM microbial culture collection

ITEM is an internationally recognized and ISO 9001-certified culture collection, hosted at the CNR-Institute of Sciences of Food Production (ISPA) in Bari (Italy). ITEM holds more than 14.000 strains of agro-food interest including filamentous fungi, yeasts and bacteria. It is a partner of the Italian network of microbial resources collections “JRU MIRRI-IT” (mirri-it.it/) and has been involved in the MIRRI-ERIC Infrastructure constitution (mirri.org). In addition to the ITEM database, strains-related data are included in the i) World Data Centre for Microorganisms (wdcm.org), ii) MIRRI-ERIC Catalogue and iii) CNR Biomemory Project network (biomemory.cnr.it). Thanks to the support of the ongoing project “SUS-MIRRI.IT”, ITEM is upgrading and improving both the collection database and infrastructure, to integrate all the information associated with the strains preserved, improve quality control management and setting up a disaster recovery plan by creating a physical backup at the CNR-ISPA institute in Foggia (Italy). Generally, collections databases should not be standalone systems, but they must interact with other bioinformatic systems to achieve a global view of data and passport information available on strains [1]. Accordingly, the ITEM upgraded database management relies on interconnections between the recent catalogue of MIRRI-IT and different platforms storing biological data and microbial culture data: BioloMICS (BioAware) for on-line catalogue, base statistics and images DB (item.bio-aware.com); EasyTrack2D (Twin Helix) for internal physical storage reference; Bionumerics (Applied Maths) for DNA/RNA sequences and passport data. All information is locally managed by R scripts to conform different standards. The final goal is to standardize all information under FAIR principles (go-fair.org), in a unique platform with API capabilities to intercommunicate with other external components.