2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Innovations to culturing the difficult-to-culture microorganisms

Planned Research

PDF

Project Area	Post-Koch Ecology: The next-era microbial ecology that elucidates the super-terrestrial organism system
Project/Area Number	19H05683
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Review Section	Complex systems
Research Institution	National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Principal Investigator	Nakai Ryosuke 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 生命工学領域, 主任研究員 (90637802)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	玉木秀幸国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 生命工学領域, 研究グループ長 (00421842) 草田裕之国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 生命工学領域, 主任研究員 (00827537)
Project Period (FY)	2019-06-28 – 2024-03-31
Keywords	微生物 / 細菌 / 分離培養 / 生物資源 / 系統分類 / 多様性
Outline of Final Research Achievements	The advent of high-throughput “omics” technology has substantially expanded our knowledge of microbial diversity. Despite advancements in sequencing technologies, most microorganisms remain unculturable in the laboratory. To explore such unseen microorganisms beyond their genes/genomes, we have developed novel cultivation strategies in the scientific project, “Post-Koch Ecology.” Our group aimed to elucidate “cultivation tips” to improve the cultivation efficiency of these difficult-to-culture bacteria. We isolated approximately 500 phylogenetically novel bacterial strains from upland soils under various media conditions. Based on the efficacy of each tested culture medium, we designed new cultivation conditions and applied a gel-filled microwell array device as a novel cultivation technology for high-throughput mining of uncultured bacteria. The novel strains were deposited at the RIKEN BRC as bioresources and made available for future academic and industrial research.
Free Research Field	微生物生態学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	本研究では、コッホによる従来型の寒天平板培養の抜本的再考を通じて得た培養ノウハウをマイクロ培養アレイデバイス（ポストコッホ技術）の活用に活かし、ハイスループットランダム隔離培養法の基盤を確立した。今後、本技術を用いてポストコッホ微生物を含む多様な細菌（メタ細菌）の機能を解析することで、ポストコッホ機能生態学を介した生物学や生態学への学術的貢献だけでなく、健康・医療分野、環境分野および食料・農業分野における諸課題の解決に貢献することが期待される。