An international collaborative research team in which Associate Professor Haruo Suzuki of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University participated has created a world map based on the distribution of microorganisms and drug resistance genes inhabiting artificial buildings in 60 cities around the world. Created.
According to Keio University, the international collaborative research team will collect about 2015 samples from artificial environments such as subway stations in 2017 cities in 32 countries around the world, including Sendai, Tokyo, Yamaguchi, and Fukuoka, and analyze the metagenome from 60 to 5,000. (* 1)
As a result, the gene group of the aggregate of microorganisms is clearly different between the urban environment and other environments such as human body and soil, and there are 31 kinds of microorganisms common to almost all cities, which are considered to be new species in the urban environment. It turned out that there are many.
It was also clarified that the viruses observed in Japan often match the types of viruses in Europe and the United States, and that the frequency of appearance of drug resistance genes varies greatly depending on the city.The research team created a world map based on this discovery.
In the future, in order to elucidate changes in the microbial ecosystem, we plan to proceed with metagenomic analysis under the epidemic of the new coronavirus infection.Associate Professor Suzuki served as the Asian regional director of the research team and led the domestic project.
* 1 Metagenomic analysis A method to elucidate the gene cluster of a collection of microorganisms in the environment by extracting nucleic acids, genes, etc. possessed by microorganisms living in the environment and investigating their structures.
Paper information:[Cell] A global metagenomic map of urban microbiomes and antimicrobial resistance
