Associate Professor Takakazu Kaneko

■ Area and Subject Taught: Bioinformatics
■ Research Theme(s): Genomics of plant-related microbes
■ Academic Degrees: Ph. D. (Science) , Nagoya University
■ Keywords for Research Field: Genome, Symbiosis, Endophyte, Rhizobia

[Research Overview]

Diversiﬁed microorganisms are able to colonize the intercellular, and sometimes also intracellular, spaces of plant tissues, without causing apparent damage to the host plant. Bacterial endophytes and rhizobia have been isolated from several tissues in numerous plant species. Many bacterial strains have beneﬁcial eﬀects on plant growth and health. Some beneﬁcial strains of them are studied in terms of the molecular mechanisms of establishment inside plants and their functions well. We reported the full genome sequences of such bacteria, Mesorhizobium loti, Bradyrhizobium japonicum, and Azospirillum sp. B510. The genomic information provided valuable insights into the life of the bacteria, including information about interactions with host plants. We examine the nucleotide sequences of the other related endophytic bacterial strains genomes and deduce the symbiotic functional gene repertoire in their genomes. Comparative genomics of naturally occurring plant-associated bacteria have a potential for providing information that can be used to develop enhanced plant-microbe interaction.

[Notable Publications and Works in the Last Three Years]

1) Complete genomic structure of the cultivated rice endophyte Azospirillum sp. B510. Kaneko T, Minamisawa K, Isawa T, Nakatsukasa H, Mitsui H, Kawaharada Y, Nakamura Y, Watanabe A, Kawashima K, Ono A, Shimizu Y, Takahashi C, Minami C, Fujishiro T, Kohara M, Katoh M, Nakazaki N, Nakayama S, Yamada M, Tabata S, Sato S. DNA Res. 2010;17(1):37-50.
Microbial genome sequencing.
2) Community shifts of soybean stem-associated bacteria responding to diﬀerent nodulation phenotypes and N levels. Ikeda S, Okubo T, Kaneko T, Inaba S, Maekawa T, Eda S, Sato S, Tabata S, Mitsui H, Minamisawa K.ISME J. 2010 Mar;4(3):315-26.
Microbial community composition analysis
3) Genome structure of the legume, Lotus japonicus.　Sato S, Nakamura Y, Kaneko T, Asamizu E, Kato T, Nakao M, Sasamoto S, Watanabe A, Ono A, Kawashima K, Fujishiro T, Katoh M, Kohara M, Kishida Y, Minami C, Nakayama S, Nakazaki N, Shimizu Y, Shinpo S, Takahashi C, Wada T, Yamada M, Ohmido N, Hayashi M, Fukui K, Baba T, Nakamichi T, Mori H, Tabata S.
DNA Res. 2008 Aug;15(4):227-39. Plant genome sequencing