Dictyostelium discoideum is a widely studied model organism with both unicellular and multicellular forms in its developmental cycle. The Dictyostelium genome encodes 285 predicted protein kinases, similar to the count of the much more advanced Drosophila. It contains members of most kinase classes shared by fungi and metazoans, as well as many previously thought to be metazoan specific, indica...

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Quantitative experiments are described on spatio-temporal patterns of coherent chemical signaling activity in populations of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae. We observe competition between spontaneously firing centers and rotating spiral waves that depends strongly on the overall cell density. At low densities, no complete spirals appear and chemotactic aggregation is driven by periodic concen...

(2007) ForA is a Diaphanous-related formin required for directed cell motility in Dictyostelium discoideum. The American Society for Cell Biology, Dijon, France, Dynamic interplay between cytoskeletal and membrane systems, Abstract: 17. (2008) The actinome of Dictyostelium discoideum in comparison to actins and actin-related protein from other organisms. Characterization of the Ste20-like kinas...

This paper summarizes our knowledge of the structure and biosynthesis of messenger RNA in the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum, the arrangement of DNA sequences in the Dictyostelium chromosome, and the changes in the pattern of predominant polypeptides synthesized during Dictyostelium development.

We have partially purified myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) and myosin light chain phosphatase (MLCP) from Dictyostelium discoideum. MLCK was purified 4,700-fold with a yield of approximately 1 mg from 350 g of cells. The enzyme is very acidic as suggested by its tight binding to DEAE. Dictyostelium MLCK has an apparent native molecular mass on HPLC G3000SW of approximately 30,000 D. Mg2+ is re...

Dictyostelium discoideum slugs show a pronounced thermotaxis. We have modelled the motion of the D. discoideum slug in the absence and in the presence of a thermal gradient. Our model is an extension of the hybrid cellular automata/partial differential equation model, as formulated by Savill and Hogeweg [J. theor. Biol., (1997) 184, 229-235]. The modelled slugs maintain their shape and crawl, w...

dictyBase (http://dictybase.org) is the model organism database for the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. This contribution provides an update on dictyBase that has been previously presented. During the past 3 years, dictyBase has taken significant strides toward becoming a genome portal for the whole Amoebozoa clade. In its latest release, dictyBase has scaled up to host multiple Dictyos...

Molecular mechanisms ensuring cellular adhesion have been studied in detail in Dictyostelium amoebae, but little is known about the regulation of cellular adhesion in these cells. Here, we show that cellular adhesion is regulated in Dictyostelium, notably by the concentration of a cellular secreted factor accumulating in the medium. This constitutes a quorum-sensing mechanism allowing coordinat...

Mitochondria play a pivotal role in apoptosis in multicellular organisms by releasing apoptogenic factors such as cytochrome c that activate the caspases effector pathway, and apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) that is involved in a caspase-independent cell death pathway. Here we report that cell death in the single-celled organism Dictyostelium discoideum involves early disruption of mitochondria...