The status of research on anaerobes in Japan.

The present article describes the recent status of research on anaerobes in Japan by reviewing publications from the last few years in the Japanese Journal of the Association for Anaerobic Infection Research. Most studies were categorized into clinical infection, susceptibility and resistance mechanisms, epidemiology and typing systems, and pathogenesis and virulence factors; clinical infection and susceptibility studies were the most common. The present article focuses on recent research studies on anaerobic bacteria and their diseases conducted in Japan. In Japan, clinical laboratories are the most active location of studies on anaerobes because anaerobic culture has become easy to perform by use of an anaerobic pouch and gas generator. Thus, studies of clinical infection and susceptibility testing of isolates are popular. Clinical laboratories have, however, been under pressure because of limited budgets from health insurance, a pressure that has hampered the spread of anaerobic culture into many clinical laboratories. Studies of anaerobes in research laboratories are not active, although molecular biological studies on the pathogenicity of Clostridium species such as Clostridium perfringens have been conducted at a few research laboratories. As a consequence, studies of epidemiology and typing systems, pathogenesis and virulence factors of anaerobes, and other basic studies have been less active.