This perspective provides a historical account of the isolation and nomenclature of the cyanobacterial strains currently known as Synechococcus elongatus. The story focuses on an isolate from the San Francisco Bay area of California (Pasteur Culture Collection PCC 7942) that has, for decades, been the genetic model for this species, and its close relative isolated from Waller Creek in Texas (PCC 6301, also known as the University of Texas at Austin Culture Collection of Algae UTEX 625). Until recently, these strains have been the only representatives of the species. A new wild isolate, UTEX 3055, is distinctly different from the prior reference strains. S. elongatus strains have been widely used by labs around the world to discover fundamental cellular processes and to engineer cyanobacteria to generate useful products. The review clarifies relationships among strains that carry different names, and explains how names that appear in the literature have changed over the years.

这种观点为蓝藻菌株的分离和命名提供了历史解释，目前被称为延伸菌（Synechococcus elongatus）。故事的重点是从加利福尼亚的旧金山湾地区分离出来的一种细菌（Pasteur Culture Collection PCC 7942），几十年来一直是该物种的遗传模型，其近亲从德克萨斯州的Waller Creek分离（PCC 6301，也被称为德克萨斯大学的藻类UTEX 625奥斯汀文化收藏）。直到最近，这些菌株还是该物种的唯一代表。一种新的野生分离株UTEX 3055与先前的参考菌株明显不同。伸长链球菌该菌株已被世界各地的实验室广泛使用，以发现基本的细胞过程并改造蓝细菌以产生有用的产物。该综述阐明了携带不同名称的菌株之间的关系，并解释了多年来文献中出现的名称如何变化。