RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences Laboratory for Gut Homeostasis
Team Leader: Kenya Honda (M.D., Ph.D)
Research Summary

The mammalian alimentary tract harbors about a thousand of species of commensal microorganisms that homeostatically interact with the host. Our team is focusing on immunological attributes of the microbiota and trying to identify responsible members of the microbiota and their derived factors that deeply affect the immune system. Our long term goal is to develop a way to manipulate and normalize compositions of the gut microbiota to treat various disease conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), autoimmunity, allergy and cancer.
Main Research Fields
- Medicine, Dentistry & Pharmacy
Related Research Fields
- Biological Sciences
- Biology
Keywords
- Gut microflora
- Microbiota
- Mucosal Immunity
Selected Publications
Papers with an asterisk(*) are based on research conducted outside of RIKEN.
- 1.Thaiss CA, Levy M, Korem T, Dohnalová L, Shapiro H, Jaitin DA, David E, Winter DR, Gury-BenAri M, Tatirovsky E, Tuganbaev T, Federici S, Zmora N, Zeevi D, Dori-Bachash, M., Pevsner-Fischer, M., Kartvelishvily, E., Brandis, A., Harmelin, A., Shibolet O, Halpern Z, Honda K, Amit I, Segal, E, Elinav E:
"Microbiota Diurnal Rhythmicity Programs Host Transcriptome Oscillations."
Cell, 167(6):1495-1510 (2016). - 2.Mathewson ND, Jenq R, Mathew AV, Koenigsknecht M, Hanash A, Toubai T, Oravecz-Wilson K, Wu SR, Sun Y, Rossi C, Fujiwara H, Byun J, Shono Y, Lindemans C, Calafiore M, Schmidt TC, Honda K, Young VB, Pennathur S, van den Brink M, Reddy P:
"Gut microbiome-derived metabolites modulate intestinal epithelial cell damage and mitigate graft-versus-host disease."
Nat. Immunol. 17(5):505 (2016). - 3.Honda K, Littman DR:
"The microbiota in adaptive immune homeostasis and disease."
Nature, 535:75-84 (2016). - 4.Ramanan D, Bowcutt R, Lee SC, Tang MS, Kurtz ZD, Ding Y, Honda K, Gause WC, Blaser MJ, Bonneau RA, Lim YA, Loke P, Cadwell K:
"Helminth infection promotes colonization resistance via type 2 immunity."
Science, 352(6285):608-612 (2016). - 5.Tanoue T, Atarashi K, Honda K:
"Development and maintenance of intestinal regulatory T cells."
Nat. Rev. Immunol., 16(5):295-309 (2016). - 6.Atarashi K, Tanoue T, Ando M, Kamada N, Nagano Y, Narushima S, Suda W, Imaoka A, Setoyama H, Nagamori T, Ishikawa E, Shima T, Hara T, Kado S, Jinnohara T, Ohno H, Kondo T, Toyooka K, Watanabe E, Yokoyama S, Tokoro S, Mori H, Noguchi Y, Morita H, Ivanov II, Sugiyama T, Nuñez G, Camp JG, Hattori M, Umesaki Y, Honda K:
"Th17 Cell Induction by Adhesion of Microbes to Intestinal Epithelial Cells."
Cell, 163:367-380 (2015). - 7.Atarashi K, Tanoue T, Oshima K, Suda W, Nagano Y, Nishikawa H, Fukuda S, Saito T, Narushima S, Hase K, Kim S, Fritz JV, Wilmes P, Ueha S, Matsushima K, Ohno H, Olle B, Sakaguchi S, Taniguchi T, Morita H, Hattori M, Honda K:
"Treg induction by a rationally selected mixture of Clostridia strains from the human microbiota."
Nature, 500:232-236 (2013). - 8.Honda K, Littman DR:
"The microbiome in infectious disease and inflammation."
Annu Rev Immunol., 30:759-95 (2012). - 9.*Atarashi K, Tanoue T, Shima T, Imaoka A, Kuwahara T, Momose Y, Cheng G, Yamasaki S, Saito T, Ohba Y, Taniguchi T, Takeda K, Hori S, Ivanov II, Umesaki Y, Itoh K, Honda K:
"Induction of colonic regulatory T cells by indigenous Clostridium species."
Science, 331:337-41 (2011). - 10.*Ivanov II, Atarashi K, Manel N, Brodie EL, Shima T, Karaoz U, Wei D, Goldfarb KC, Santee CA, Lynch SV, Tanoue T, Imaoka A, Itoh K, Takeda K, Umesaki Y, Honda K, Littman DR:
"Induction of intestinal Th17 cells by segmented filamentous bacteria."
Cell, 139:485-98 (2009).
Recent Research Results
Feb. 19, 2016
Good neighbors make good defensesSep. 27, 2013
Intestinal bacteria show ‘community spirit’
Events
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Kenya Honda
- Team Leader
Core members
- Kazutaka Murata
- Research Scientist
- Takashi Ohya
- Research Scientist
- Hideki Terajima
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
- Sayoko Saegusa
- Technical Staff II
- Miho Takekawa
- Technical Staff II
Contact Information
4F, North Research Building
1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku,
Yokohama City, Kanagawa,
230-0045, Japan
Tel: +81-(0)45-503-9682
Email: kenya.honda [at] riken.jp