I got a frozen aliquot of H. pylori at -80 that i want to plate. I wonder if i should thaw the entire aliquot and plate it all, leaving me with no back up, or let it thaw a bit, plate half of my sample and refreeze what is left.
Will the refrozen bacteria die?
Bacteria treated in this way may, after some time, grow very poorely.
A much better solution is to culture H. pylori strains on several plates, collect the bacterial mass into many tubes and thaw only one when needed (the whole thawed sample is used).
Although I do not have experience with H. pylori, I will answer based on my experience with a plant pathogenic bacterium.
Common practice for this bacterium is to make one "master stock" to store in our -80 biological inventory and then several frozen "working stocks" that we could plate from. The bacterial culture (grown in liquid media) is mixed with glycerol to store in this method. The tube of culture was placed on dry ice during the plating process, removing and returning to the ice between each plate. The stock was kept frozen the entire time. The bacteria remain viable this way for several months.
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