{{Primary sources, date=April 2010
Japan Collection of Microorganisms (JCM) is a culture collection of microorganisms in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. It is a semi-governmental collection maintained by RIKEN BioResource Center and it is located in
Tsukuba
is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 244,528 in 108,669 households and a population density of 862 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 20.3%. The total ar ...
,
Ibaraki Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) 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 (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...
(including actinomycetes), 370 strains of
archaea
Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebac ...
and 4,800 strains of
fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
including
yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitut ...
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.