Kabushiki Kaisha Yakult Honsha

Nagoya University

National University Corporation Tokai National Higher Education and Research System

Koji Nomoto

Hirokazu Tsuji

Takashi Asahara

Hideyuki Akaza

Kaoru Moriyama

Shusuke Hashimoto

Teruo Yokokura

Takeshi Matsuzaki

Masato Nagaoka

Mayumi Kiwaki

Kazunori Matsuda

Masaaki Hirayama

Kinji Ohno

The present invention relates to a method for simply diagnosing the progress of disease condition of a Parkinson's disease patient. Provided are a method for determining Parkinson's disease using the number of one or more intestinal bacteria selected from the group consisting ofgroup,, andsubgroup and/or the total number of intestinal bacteria as a marker, and a method for determining Parkinson's disease using the blood LPS level and/or the blood LBP level of a Parkinson's disease patient as an indicator.

Marker and method for determination of Parkinson's disease

Disclosed herein is a method for determining whether a test subject has equol-producing ability or not. The method involves measuring equol-producing ability of a test subject, wherein an equol converting enzyme gene derived from enteric bacteria of the test subject is detected using three types of primer sets described herein as the primer sets a) to c).

Method for measuring equol-producing ability

An object of the present invention is to provide a method of quantitating or detecting a microorganism, capable of detecting a live microorganism at high sensitivity and more precisely. A method of quantitating a microorganism of interest, using as an index the amount of rRNA of the microorganism of interest is provided.

Method of quantitatively analyzing microorganism targeting rRNA

An object of the invention is to provide a medical drug, a food and drink having a role in regulating the concentration of equol in vivo and being capable of taking for a long time with high safety and provide a selective medium for a microorganism having conversion ability to equol and a method of detecting the same. Provided are an equol concentration-raising or reducing agent containing a carbohydrate as an active ingredient; use of a carbohydrate for producing the equol concentration-raising or reducing agent; a method of raising or reducing the concentration of equol by administrating a carbohydrate in an effective dose; a selective medium containing a carbohydrate for a microorganism having conversion ability to equol; and a method of detecting a microorganism having conversion ability to equol by use of the selective medium.

Equol level regulator

The present invention is directed to a microorganism having an ability of converting daidzein to equol in 24 hours of 50% or higher; a food/beverage or pharmaceutical composition containing the microorganism; an equol production method employing the microorganism; and a nucleic acid fragment which can specifically detect the microorganism.

Equol-producing bacterium and use thereof

An antitumor agent is provided by including, as an active ingredient, a polysaccharide-glycan complex obtained by treating a Gram-positive bacteria such as lactic acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium strains with a cell wall lytic enzyme produced by a bacterium belonging to the genus Achromobacter. The polysaccharide-glycan complex has no toxicity and causes no side effect. Being water-soluble, it is easily formulated into any arbitrary dose form, such as an injectable solution. It can easily be prepared from an easily available starting material.

Growing community of inventors

Minato-ku, Japan

Koji Nomoto