FINAL REPORT

SUMMARY OF 5 LECTURES FROM INTRODUCTION OF BIORESOURCE SUBJECT

Nurul Ainina (201626099)

Master of Life Science Innovation Program

Model Organisms and Bioresources In Life Science Research (Kuniya Abe)

Model organism have prominent role in biomedical and environmental research. There are
some certain characteristics that should be attached on them, such as having small size of body,
rapidly growth, short life cycle, ready available and tractability. This is because the model organism
should ease to be manipulated and will use more than once. Mice, yeast, C. elegans, Arabidopsis, and
E. coli are the example species which are widely used as model organism for many research. At first,
microanalysis is often conducted into model organism to understand which genes that expressed on
the phenotype. However, new paradigm nowadays tries opposite where genes are injected first then
observe the emerging phenotype of organism. This method is called reverse genetics which also was
used by Abe, et al (2012) on his research about molecular identification of tw5 : Vps52 that can promote
pluripotential cell differentiation. In this research, the differentiation of pluripotential cell in
embryonic ectoderm was investigated after the injection of gene vacuolar protein sorting 52 (Vps52).
The result showed that this gene affected the differentiation of embryonic ectoderm through cell-cell
interaction.

Roles of Resource Centers in Promoting Life Science (Masatomo Kobayashi)

Arabidopsis, as model plants, is often used widely since it has small size, short life cycle and
its genome has been characterized as well. To support the life science research in Japan, RIKEN
Bioresource Center (RIKEN BRC) as the one of research institution works to collect, preserve, and
distribute biological materials, include Arabidopsis. RIKEN BRC also provides bioresource information
center virtually. There are some roles that must be agreed by bioresource center for running their
activities. In terms of using living modified organism (LMOs) for example, it should be ensured that
handling and transportation are safe. The general information about LMOs, such as name of organism,
vector DNA, name of foreign DNA in LMOs and name and contact address of supplier, must be
revealed clearly before being exported. Bioresource center also has responsibility to ensure the quality
of LMOs within revolving the technologies for secure storage, quality measurement, and operation
system.

Introduction of Mouse Repository ; Mouse for Research Of Disease (Atsushi Yoshiki)

Mouse repository is essential in biological field. Mouse has been used widely as model
organism for human since it has many similarities in physiology, anatomy, and metabolism activity.
Furthermore, almost 95% of DNA coding sequence in mouse fits with human. The repository of mouse
is conducted to enhance the progress of human biology research, particularly associated with human
diseases. Regarding to this fact, The Experimental Animal Division in Riken Bioresource Center works
to preserve mouse’s strain, distribute high quality mouse for research and collect other models for
human disease and gene function. Basically, mouse has various strains. The using of its strains depends
on the investigation that researcher wants to understand. The advancing of technology, furthermore,
allows the researcher to observe some biological processes using fluorescent and applies those into
certain mouse. Fluorescent can show the type of genes on mouse based on the emerge color. It was
reported that B6-App<tm1(NL)> mouse, B6. 129-Dmd<tm1Mok> mouse and B6-Slc39a13,tm1Thir>
mouse can be used for understanding the mechanism of diseases and better therapy.

Introduction of Cell Bank and Cell Resources for Research Disease (Yukio Nakamura)

As life science research institute, RIKEN BRC initiated to establish cell bank for research
purpose. It provides general cell lines, cells for human genome research derived from human and
animals, and stem cells. The work of cell bank in RIKEN BRC itself is based on the quality management
system ISO 9001. Basically, this standardization is responsible for maintain reproducibility and
scientific truth of cell line from misidentification, contamination, and instability. The history of cell
culture has been started since 1907. It has developed significantly as the time passes by. Primarily in
the period of 1962 until 2007, the researcher found important discovery for cell scientific research.
They successfully characterized somatic cells ES cell line and iPS cell line in human and some animals.
Both ES cell and iPS cell line have important role in establishing pluripotent stem cells. For instance,
ES cell or iPS cell are useful for people who are suffering insufficient Red Blood Cell (RBC) line since
they can help to produce RBC line within in vitro biological process. Not only for culture RBC, iPS cell,
moreover, can be transplanted also to predict disease mechanism on human body and stimulate the
discovery of new drug.

Introduction of Activities in Microbial Resource Collection ; Microbial Resources And Diversity

(Moriya Ohkuma)

Riken bioresource center is the central of biological resources in Japan. It consists of several
divisions, including Microbe Division/Japan Collection of Microorganism (JCM). This division works for
collecting, preserving, distributing, and checking the quality of microbial organism. Furthermore, JCM
also contributes in ensuring the sustainability of microorganism to produce valuable microbes that
will be useful for health and environmental research. Microorganism is microbial organism that only
can be seen using microscope. Due to its very tiny size, the identification of microorganism is
performed by the strain characterization. This method is also used for describing new species of
microorganism in the world. Based on the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes, the
scheme of strain’s type and the viability of depositing of strain culture in different countries are the
main requirements for authenticating new species. In case of culturing strain for microorganism,
practically some of them have very low culturability level. They are exist but difficult to cultivate.
Therefore, the finding of microorganism classification without doing cultivation, such as the rRNA
Approaches, is more preferred. This approaching also has been performed by Ohkuma (2001) to
understand the symbiosis in the gut microbial community of termites.
 THE ROLE OF BIORESOURCES IN LIFE SCIENCE AND INNOVATION

Nurul Ainina (201626099)

Master of Life Science Innovation Program

Bioresources is something new for me since my background education before was about agricultural
engineering. In my undergraduate, I only took biology subject in the first semester and after that
mostly I studied about engineering and processing for agricultural products. Fortunately, before going
to Japan, I used to be the teacher for natural subject science for junior high school student. It is not
“apple to apple” may be if I compare the biology material subject for junior high school students with
for college student. However, through that experience, at least I had a little description about
bioresource field, such as when Prof. Kuniya Abe explained about the development of embryonic
mammalian cell or when Prof. Moriya Ohkuma talked about the classification of microorganism .

Actually, this is such a challenge for me to understand deeply about this new field. However, all of the
Sensei’s who gave the lectures were the experts, so they could explain chapter by chapter very well.
All sensei comes from RIKEN Bioresource Center (RIKEN BRC), the largest scientific research institution
in Japan. From their explanation, I figured that bioresource has important role for the improvement
of life science innovation, particularly in disease mechanism and drugs discovery field. As we know,
that the climate change, the significant growth of population, the declining of natural resources and
lifestyle possibly threaten human existence. Those factors may lead into the emerging of some
diseases in human and harm other bioresources.

The using of some characterized model organisms really helps the observation of some disease in
human body. After finding a whole description on how the disease can attack part of human body,
further research may study about the suitable medicines for against that illness. For investigating the
effectiveness of the medicine, in vivo test and in vitro test should be conducted. Bioresource takes
responsibility on in vivo tests since the quality of model organisms used should be ensured before
starting the investigation.

I highly believe that many innovation in life science cannot be separated from the using of biological
resources. To support the continuance of life science innovation research that will be useful for the
benefits of human health and environment, the sustainability of every bioresource should be
preserved well. The establishment of research institution, like RIKEN BRC, that concern in collecting,
preserving, distributing, and maintaining quality control of biologic organism will significantly help the
advancing of life science innovation research.

In a nut shell, through this lecture, I got broader knowledge about bioresource in nature and how to
use it wisely for the sake of human and environment. Visiting directly RIKEN BRC surely can increase
the curiosity of student more since it has complete service and equipment. I really hope, I can visit
RIKEN BRC later.