Many people may heard about the existence of Silkworms, but only few people have knowledge beyond "caterpillars that make cocoons from which silk is made", "eats mulberry leaves" etc. But actually, the silkworm is an amazing insect! Here, we will introduce the mysterious ecology of the silkworm and the latest Japanese Glowing silk that is gaining attention worldwide. Read more

Pv11 cells, a cultured cell line derived from the sleeping chironomid Polypedilum vanderplanki that exhibits extreme desiccation tolerance, can be preserved in the dry state at room temperature for long term while retaining the capacity to resume proliferation. Nevertheless, the precise mechanism by which they resume their vital functions remains to be elucidated. A joint research team led by National Agriculture and Food Research Organization(NARO) has revealed that the recently isolated trehalose transporter STRT1 is responsible for the efficient release of trehalose, which acts as a desiccation protection in desiccated cells, into the extracellular medium upon rehydration. Read more

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), in collaboration with Tohoku University has revealed that the root nodule bacterium Bradyrhizobium ottawaense, which has high ability to mitigate the emission of nitrous oxide(N₂O), a greenhouse gas(GHG), with high expression of the gene encoding the enzyme that converts N₂O to N₂. Co-inoculation of B. ottawaense with the plant growth promoting microorganism Pseudomonas bacterium(helper microorganism) to soybean plants, has resulted in the improvement of nitrogen fixation ability of the B. ottawaense and growth of soybean plants. Read more

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) has developed the "Rhizosphere Frame System" for live-imaging of the plant-microbe interactions between plant roots and symbiotic microorganisms in the soil. By this, NARO was able to continuously observe the process of establishing symbiotic relationship between rhizobia and legume roots in soil for the first time in the world.By using this system, the plant-microbe interactions will be further elucidated, and it is expected that this will lead to the development and promotion of efficient technologies for using rhizobia in agriculture, to reduce chemical fertilizer usage and greenhouse gas emissions. Read more

National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), in collaboration with Chiba University and Tokyo Institute of Technology, has developed a new technology that introduces enzymes necessary for genome editing into plant cells by short-time exposure to atmospheric pressure plasma. In the conventional genome editing technology, introduction of exogenous DNA is required, but this new technology does not require removal of exogenous DNA. Therefore, it is considered to be more convenient and applicable to various plants, and it is expected to become a new tool for breed improvement. Read more

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) has achieved a groundbreaking result in understanding the reproductive mechanism of symbiotic microorganisms in insects. In a recent study, researchers led by NARO successfully reproduced the phenomenon of sex reversal, or feminization, caused by the symbiotic microorganism Wolbachia in vitro. By extracting Wolbachia that has a feminizing effect from a lepidopteran pest insect called Ostrinia scapulalis, the research team transferred it into cultured cells established from male O. scapulalis. Read more