The human gastrointestinal tract (GI-tract) is heavily colonized by a multitude of microbes, collectively called the microbiota. The microbiota provide us with metabolic capabilities not encoded in the human genome, e.g. the ability to utilize energy stored in dietary polysaccharides otherwise indigestible to us. Our microbiota also protects us against pathogens by competing for nutrients and binding sites within the GI-tract. Furthermore, given that cells of the GI-tract microbiota outnumber those of the host by ten-fold, this microbial ecosystem can be viewed as ‘an organ in an organ'. The GI-tract microbiota has been a subject of intensive research during the last years, and its importance in health and disease is only starting to be realized because of recent breakthrough observations linking the human microbiota composition with major human diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. As the knowledge about the GI-tract microbiota composition and its impact on host health begins to accumulate, undoubtedly much of the research focus will shift from the systems level toward individual species and molecules. Consequently, there will be an increasing need for reductionist/functional proteomic approaches to identify and characterize the various ‘molecular players' being utilized by different bacteria during their attachment to the intestinal epithelium of both healthy and diseased hosts. In this review we will highlight our recent findings about mucus adhesion mechanisms of the paradigm probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG.

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Because a phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences was adapted to the bacterial taxonomy in the 1990s, the phylogenetic relationship of lactic acid bacteria has been revealed.Most of the species and the genera, which have been regarded as lactic acid bacteria, are belonging to the order Lactobacillales. This order consists of six families and 33 genera in 2009. Within this order, many of newly isolated genera and the genera transferred from the previously described genera are included. Here, I review historical transition of taxonomic position of lactic acid bacteria, and give an outline of the characteristics of the two families, Carnobacteriaceae and Aerococcaceae, which are composed of many of newly isolated genera.

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Massive parallel pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes has allowed to profile bacterial community structure of gastro-intestinal (GI) -tract samples in detail. Critical points in this analytical method are to design a set of universal primers which is able to amplify the highly diversed 16S rRNA genes of GI-tract bacterial member and how to convert massive sequenced data into bacterial population data. In this review, we discuss the current status and problems in GI microbial composition analysis based pyrosequence.

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The Microbe Division in RIKEN-BRC has been collecting, preserving, and distributing cultured microbial strains as one of the leading culture collections in the world since established as Japan Collection of Microorganisms (JCM) in 1981. In this review, how to order of strains, deposit of strains and propose of new species are presented.

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The Article 15.1 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) provides that recognizing the sovereign rights of States over their natural resources, the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments. In the use of biological genetic resources (BGRs) of other countries, a prior informed consent (PIC) from the providing country is needed at first and mutually agreed terms need to be concluded between the provider and the user under the PIC. In this article, an issue of the Access and Benefit-sharing in CBD is outlined, and the way how to access to BGRs in other countries is discussed introducing the NITE-Mongol project as a case study. Also, the benefit-sharing matter, the traditional knowledge in the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol are discussed.

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