Dictyostelid

The dictyostelids are a group of cellular slime molds, or social amoebae.

Slug behavior

A petri dish of Dictyostelium.

When food (normally bacteria) is readily available they are individual amoebae, which feed and divide normally. However when the food supply is exhausted, they aggregate to form a multicellular assembly, called a pseudoplasmodium, grex, or slug (not to be confused with the gastropod mollusc called a slug). The slug has a definite anterior and posterior, responds to light and temperature gradients, and has the ability to migrate. Under the correct circumstances the slug matures forming a sporocarp (fruiting body) with a stalk supporting one or more sori (balls of spores). These spores are inactive cells protected by resistant cell walls, and become new amoebae once food is available.

In Acytostelium, the sporocarp is supported by a stalk composed of cellulose, but in other dictyostelids the stalk is composed of cells, sometimes taking up the majority of the original amoebae. With a few exceptions, these cells die during stalk formation, and there is a definite correspondence between parts of the slug and parts of the fruiting body. Aggregation of amoebae generally takes place in converging streams. The amoebae move using filose pseudopods, and are attracted to chemicals produced by other amoebae. In Dictyostelium, aggregation is signalled by cAMP, but others use different chemicals. In the species Dictyostelium purpureum, the grouping is by kinship, not just by proximity.

Uses as model organism

Dictyostelium has been used as a model organism in molecular biology and genetics, and is studied as an example of cell communication, differentiation, and programmed cell death. It is also an interesting example of the evolution of cooperation and cheating.^[1][2][3] A large body of research data concerning D. discoideum is available on-line at DictyBase.

Life cycle of Dictyostelium

Mechanism of aggregation in Dictyostelium

Diagram showing how a Dictyostelium discoideum amoeba responds to cAMP

The mechanism behind the aggregation of the amoebae relies on Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) as a signal molecule. One cell, the founder of the colony, begins to secrete cAMP in response to stress. Others detect this signal, and respond in two ways:

• The amoeba moves towards the signal.
• The amoeba secretes more cAMP to boost the signal.

The effect of this is to relay the signal throughout the nearby population of amoebae and cause inward movement to the area of highest cAMP concentration.

Within an individual cell, the mechanism is as follows:

1. cAMP reception at the cell membrane activates a G-protein
2. G protein stimulates Adenylate cyclase
3. cAMP diffuses out of cell into medium
4. Internal cAMP inactivates the external cAMP receptor.
5. A different g-protein stimulates Phospholipase C
6. IP₃ induces calcium ion release
7. Calcium ions act on the cytoskeleton to induce the extension of pseudopodia.

Because the internal cAMP concentration inactivates the receptor for external cAMP, an individual cell shows oscillatory behaviour. This behaviour produces beautiful spirals seen in converging colonies and is reminiscent of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and two-dimensional cyclic cellular automata.

Genome

The entire genome of Dictyostelium discoideum was published in Nature in 2005 by geneticist Ludwig Eichinger and coworkers.^[4] The haploid genome contains approximately 12,500 genes on 6 chromosomes. For comparison, the diploid human genome has 20,000-25,000 genes (represented twice) on 23 chromosome pairs. There is a high level of the nucleotides adenosine and thymidine (~77%) leading to a codon usage that favors more adenosines and thymidines in the third position. Tandem repeats of trinucleotides are abundant in Dictyostelium, which in humans cause Trinucleotide repeat disorders.

Classification

The first dictyostelid to be described was Dictyostelium mucoroides in 1869 by Oskar Brefeld.^[5]

First discovered in a North Carolina forest in 1935, Dictyostelium discoideum was at first classified under 'lower fungi.' and in subsequent years into the kingdoms Protoctista, Fungi and Tubulomitochondrae. By the 1990s, most scientists accepted the current classification.

Amoebozoa are now considered by most to form a separate kingdom-level clade, being more closely related to both animals and fungi than to plants.^[4]

Model Host Organism for Legionella

Dictyostelium shares many molecular features with macrophages, the human host of Legionella. The cytoskeletal composition of D. discoideum is similar to that of mammalian cells as are the processes driven by these components, such as phagocytosis, membrane trafficking, endocytic transit and vesicle sorting. Like leukocytes, D. discoideum possess chemotactic capacity. Hence, D. discoideum represents a suitable model system to ascertain the influence of a variety of host cell factors during Legionella infections.^[6]

References

External links

• Dictyostelium (2007)
• Low Society (2004)
• dictyBase Online Informatics Resource for Dictyostelium
• dictyBase wiki official wiki site for dictyBase
• Dictyostelium discoideum Genome Project
• Dictyostelium discoideum description, life cycle