{{Primary sources, date=April 2010
Japan Collection of Microorganisms (JCM) is a culture collection of microorganisms in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. It is a semi-governmental collection maintained by
RIKEN
is a national scientific research institute in Japan. Founded in 1917, it now has about 3,000 scientists on seven campuses across Japan, including the main site at Wakō, Saitama, Wakō, Saitama Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo. Riken is a ...
BioResource Center and it is located in
Tsukuba
is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. As of January 1, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 256,526 in 121,001 households and a population density of 900 persons per km2. The percentage of the population aged over 65 wa ...
,
Ibaraki Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...
. JCM was initiated in 1980 with the purpose of serving as a repository of microorganisms. As of April 2012 JCM has about 20,700 microbial strains, including approximately 8,300 strains of
bacteria
Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...
(including actinomycetes), 370 strains of
archaea
Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even thou ...
and 4,800 strains of
fungi
A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...
including
yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom (biology), kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are est ...
s (limited to organisms classified in Risk Group 1 or 2). JCM accepts deposition of strains based on their appearance in scientific journals or accepted manuscripts.
One can search the JCM database online for microorganisms using various key words such as scientific name, JCM accession number, IAM or other culture collection accession number, culture media, strain data etc. JCM publishes its own printed catalogue once every 3 year. The first catalogue was published in 1983 and the current edition is the 10th edition published in 2007.
JCM cultures are available for a fee. The culture fee, in case of an ampoule, for commercial organizations is 10800 Japanese yen and the fee for non-profit organizations is 5400 Japanese yen.