Development of oral microbial community analysis with high resolution and accuracy based on a long-read sequencing technology

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22722
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 57:Oral science and related fields
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: Takeshita Toru 九州大学, 歯学研究院, 准教授 (50546471)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 常在微生物叢 / rRNA / ロングリードシーケンサー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study developed a microbial community analysis with high resolution and accuracy based on nucleotide sequences of rrna operon a long-read sequencing technology. We determined primer sequences which cover bacterial rrna operon comprehensively and confirmed that they can amplify the regions from bacterial and bacterial community DNA in PCR approach. We also determined bacterial composition of oral microbiota samples by using this approach with a ‘third-generation’ long-read sequencer, which showed a wide variety of nucleotide sequences of rrna operon. These results suggests that nucleotide sequences variation of rrna operon and a long-read sequencer would be useful for a microbial community analysis with a high taxonomic resolution.

Free Research Field

口腔衛生学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究により第三世代ロングリードシーケンサーを用いてrrnaオペロン全体を解析する新たな細菌群集解析系の有用性が明らかとなった。本解析系の使用により細菌群集を構成する菌種の高精度な識別はもちろん、ある部位から別の部位、あるいは別の個体への細菌の移行などを正確かつ簡便に追跡することも可能になる。本解析系は口腔常在微生物叢研究においてこれまでの手法では見えてこなかった発見をもたらし新たな切り口をもたらすことが期待できる。