Basic Research Group

Basic Research Group:
Exploration of new genetic resources and development of fungal and mushroom identification system

Germinating spores (yellow) of a pathogenic plant fungus are making their way into the tissue of a tomato leaf.

Leader's Profile

Motoichiro KODAMA
Plant Pathologist
Professor

My fields of specialization are plant pathology, biology of plant-microbe interactions, and mycology. The central theme of my research is the molecular-level analysis of the pathogenic strategies of plant pathogenic fungi and the mechanism of plant disease resistance. Though generally viewed as harmful fungi and hence as nuisances, plant pathogenic fungi are important groups of fungi and fungal-like organisms that, jointly with useful fungi represented by useful mushrooms, constitute the world we live in. Accordingly, these pathogenic fungi should also be considered as genetic resources.
There are in excess of several thousands of plant diseases that wreak tremendous damage to agricultural crops around the world. When and where did all these plant pathogenic fungi come from? How did they evolve into what they are now? More importantly, what kind of threats do such plant disease pose to us? It is our ultimate goal to solve the riddle of the origin of these plant diseases and clarify their evolutionary mechanism, thereby enabling the development of new measures for plant protection and the prediction of the emergence of new diseases. Therefore, a collection of plant pathogenic fungi from all over the world is a valuable pool of genetic resources essential for phytopathological research. We have been to Mexico, Chili, Ecuador, and other areas in Central and South America to collect fungal strains.
Our research group promotes the conservation and analysis of useful and harmful fungal genetic resources collected in Japan and abroad to build a comprehensive database that will facilitate the utilization of these genetic resources in education and research. We have selected model strains from harmful and useful fungi to promote genomics-based studies of gene functions, taxonomy, and the evolution of fungi.

Activities of Basic Research Group

The Basic Research Group explores, evaluates, and conserves fungal genetic resources, accumulating high-quality genetic resources in order to construct a database of genetic data. More specifically, we are actively committed to collecting fungus and other mushroom species throughout the country and the world. We perform accurate identification and evaluation of collected strains to accelerate the pace of exploration of new genetic resources. We are continuously expanding our cumulative stock of high-quality genetic resources and plan to double the scale of the existing genetic resource bank of 10,000 strains representing 1,000 species within a period of five years. Additionally, we also plan to construct a genetic resource database, which will store both morphologic and genetic information on the collected fungal and other mushroom samples to lay the groundwork for the development of an identification and classification system for mushrooms and plant pathogenic fungi.. We expect that the high-quality genetic resource bank will serve a wide range of needs in the development and practical application of new functions of fungi and enable the achievement of the purposes of environmental conservation, food production, and health promotion, all necessary components for the realization of a sustainable society in harmony with nature.

Program Members

・Prof. Motoichiro KODAMA (Group Leader) -Bioenvironmental Science, United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences (UGSAS)-
・Prof. Nitaro MAEKAWA -Bioevnironmental Science, UGSAS-
・Prof. Teruyuki MATSUMOTO -Bioevnironmental Science, UGSAS-
・Prof. Eiji NANBA -Center for Bioscience and Technology-
・Prof. Shinichi ITO -Bioevnironmental Science, UGSAS, Yamaguchi Univ.-

Associate Members

・Prof. Akira NAKAGIRI -Fungus/Mushroom Resource and Research Center (FMRC), Faculty of Agriculture-
・Associate Prof. Akihiro ITAI -Bioresources Science, UGSAS-
・Assistant Prof. Kozue SOTOME -FMRC, Faculty of Agriculture-
・Assistant Prof. Takashi SHIROUZU -FMRC, Faculty of Agriculture-