ATCC

American Type Culture Collection, a supplier of reference microbial strains. Compendial tests specify strains by ATCC numbers, such as Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 or Candida albicans ATCC 10231, or by equivalent numbers from other collections such as NCTC, NCIM, MTCC or NBRC. Labs buy these as reference cultures and maintain them through a seed-lot system, keeping working cultures within five passages of the original.