The effects of cadmium (Cd) contamination in soil onto the bacterial communities of the guts pooled from ten Metaphire posthuma were addressed during 14 days' incubation. We found that about 50% of Cd (5 mg/kg, dry weight soil) in the contaminated soil was bio-accumulated into the earthworms. DNA was extracted from the guts of M. posthuma and their dwelling soil irrespective of Cd treatment for the analysis of the bacterial communities of guts in M. posthuma and in soil by PCR-DGGE (polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis). A distinctive cluster of bacterial communities of the guts in the earthworm with and without Cd treatment using the analysis of unweighted pair-group method using arithmetic averages (UPGMA) was observed, indicating that the bacterial community of guts could be changed by Cd. However, no differences in the bacterial communities in soil irrespective of Cd treatment were observed, which could be resulted from the bioremediation of Cd by earthworms leading to insignificant effect of Cd on bacterial communities in soil. For the sequencing of some of the dominant bands in the DGGE profile, Bradyrhizobium japonicum, Stenotrophomonas sp. D2, and Labrys, sp. CC-BB4, whose sequences display an identity of more than 97% using blast program against a known sequence in the GeneBank database and Ribosomal database, were identified. Collectively, our results showed that earthworm treatment can decrease the concentrations of Cd in soil, and Cd cause a shift in the bacterial communities in the guts of M. posthuma. The application of M. posthuma for Cd bioremediation would be desired. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.