South Australian Museum Australian Biological Tissue Collection

The Australian Biological Tissue Collection (ABTC) was the first frozen tissue collection in any Australian museum (established in 1979) and remains the largest tissue bank for wildlife research in the Southern Hemisphere. Currently the ABTC contains an estimated 300,000 samples from 180,000 individual animals. This encompasses most vertebrate groups as well as a broad representation of major invertebrate groups from Australia and surrounding regions.

Samples stored in the ABTC are carefully maintained to ensure their quality is suitable for detailed biological research using molecular genetic technologies. A large portion of ABTC tissues were collected into liquid nitrogen and are stored in ultra-freezers, where the temperature is maintained at approximately -70°C. At this temperature, animal cell structures remain intact, making frozen tissues suitable for protein, DNA and RNA analysis. The remainder of the ABTC is maintained in concentrated alcohol — these samples are typically used for DNA analysis only.

The South Australian Museum’s ABTC is a resource of global importance due to its size, its focus on native Australian fauna and the time span over which good quality tissue collection has taken place (more than 40 years). Major subsets within the ABTC include: a comprehensive representation of South Australian vertebrate species; a broad coverage of South Australian coastal fishes; and the recently updated collection of freshwater fishes from around Australia. Tissue samples from introduced species and animals from other regions such as New Guinea are also a feature of the collection.