Methods and compositions for preserving bacteria

Inventors

Couto, Daniel E. • Reddy, Shilpa • Ulrich, Jil • Michonski, Scott

Assignees

Vedanta Biosciences Inc

Abstract

The disclosure provides compositions comprising a disaccharide, a nutrient, and a buffer, which may be used for the preservation of bacteria, such as during lyophilization and/or extended storage. Provided herein are methods for preserving bacteria, involving adding bacteria to the compositions and subjecting the compositions to a lyophilization cycle. Also provided herein are methods for generating compositions that may be used, for example for the preservation of bacteria.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to preserving anaerobic, oxygen-sensitive bacterial strains by lyophilization. A stabilizing composition is provided that maintains viability of one or more bacterial strains upon lyophilization.

The composition includes a disaccharide, yeast extract, cysteine, sodium metabisulfite, and a histidine buffer. The disaccharide is a lyoprotectant selected from sucrose or trehalose, together with yeast extract as a nutrient component.

The document further describes lyophilization as a cycle including freezing, primary drying, and secondary drying, and recovery is assessed using CFU viability recovery. The disclosed approach includes defining one or more bacterial strains for preservation, including anaerobic strains associated with Clostridia-related groups and named exemplar strains.

Claims Coverage

The independent claim identified in the provided relevant claims set is clm-00001. It covers one inventive feature: an excipient/stabilizing composition that maintains bacterial viability upon lyophilization.

The inventive feature centers on a specific stabilizing composition formulation configured to maintain viability of one or more bacterial strains upon lyophilization.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications