The Dictyostelids

Raper, Kenneth B.

doi:10.1515/9781400856565

Cited by 233 publications

(244 citation statements)

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“…This kingdom is composed of solitary amoebae like Entamoeba and Acathamoeba, the acellular slime molds like Physarum, and the Dictyostelidae. There are over 100 species of Dictyostelium, divided into four major taxonomic groups (39,40). D. discoideum is in group four and is the focal species here.…”

Section: Dictyostelium Discoideum As a Model System For Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most intensely studied clone, NC4, and its derivatives like Ax4, come from a temperate forest near Mount Mitchell in western North Carolina (40). D. discoideum amoebae are solitary predators on bacteria, which they consume by engulfment (41).…”

Section: Dictyostelium Discoideum As a Model System For Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, spores are made. The adaptive value of a hardy spore is clear and has been demonstrated; it is not easily digested by predators and can withstand long periods of cold, heat, or drought (40). Second, the spores are only made atop a relatively long stalk composed of dead cells.…”

Section: Dictyostelium Discoideum As a Model System For Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe

Strassmann

Queller

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

190

200

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Much of what we know about the evolution of altruism comes from animals. Here, we show that studying a microbe has yielded unique insights, particularly in understanding how social cheaters are controlled. The social stage of Dictylostelium discoideum occurs when the amoebae run out of their bacterial prey and aggregate into a multicellular, motile slug. This slug forms a fruiting body in which about a fifth of cells die to form a stalk that supports the remaining cells as they form hardy dispersal-ready spores. Because this social stage forms from aggregation, it is analogous to a social group, or a chimeric multicellular organism, and is vulnerable to internal conflict. Advances in cell labeling, microscopy, single-gene knockouts, and genomics, as well as the results of decades of study of D. discoideum as a model for development, allow us to explore the genetic basis of social contests and control of cheaters in unprecedented detail. Cheaters are limited from exploiting other clones by high relatedness, kin discrimination, pleiotropy, noble resistance, and lottery-like role assignment. The active nature of these limits is reflected in the elevated rates of change in social genes compared with nonsocial genes. Despite control of cheaters, some conflict is still expressed in chimeras, with slower movement of slugs, slightly decreased investment in stalk compared with spore cells, and differential contributions to stalk and spores. D. discoideum is rapidly becoming a model system of choice for molecular studies of social evolution.kin selection | kin recognition | multicellularity | major transitions

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Section: Dictyostelium Discoideum As a Model System For Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dictyostelium Discoideum As a Model System For Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe

Strassmann

Queller

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

190

200

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“…However, the effect structured growth has on relatedness has not been quantitatively assessed for any social microbe, and so to address this issue, we use the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, now a model organism for social evolution studies [17][18][19]. When food is scarce, starving Dictyostelium cells aggregate to form a fruiting body where around one-fifth die to form a stalk, lifting the remaining cells aloft as viable spores [20]. Such a costly act of altruism must have evolved in groups of highly related individuals [3,4,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structured growth and genetic drift raise relatedness in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum

et al. 2012

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One condition for the evolution of altruism is genetic relatedness between altruist and beneficiary, often achieved through active kin recognition. Here, we investigate the power of a passive process resulting from genetic drift during population growth in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. We put labelled and unlabelled cells of the same clone in the centre of a plate, and allowed them to proliferate outward. Zones formed by genetic drift owing to the small population of actively growing cells at the colony edge. We also found that single cells could form zones of high relatedness. Relatedness increased at a significantly higher rate when food was in short supply. This study shows that relatedness can be significantly elevated before the social stage without a small founding population size or recognition mechanism.

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“…discoideum is a simple, mobile eukaryote that can exist as an amoeba or as a multicellular aggregate (Bonner, 1967;Raper, 1984). D. discoideum thus lends itself to the study of both single cells and three-dimensional tissues.…”

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confidence: 99%

The distribution of myosin II in Dictyostelium discoideum slug cells.

Eliott

Vardy

Williams

1991

The Journal of Cell Biology

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Abstract. While the role of myosin II in muscle contraction has been well characterized, less is known about the role of myosin II in non-muscle cells. Recent molecular genetic experiments on Dictyostelium discoideum show that myosin II is necessary for cytokinesis and multicellular development. Here we use immunofluorescence microscopy with monoclonal and polyclonal antimyosin antibodies to visualize myosin II in cells of the multicellular D. discoideum slug.M YOSIN II is found in all myocytes and in most eukaryote cells (Kom and Hammer, 1988;Warrick and Spudich, 1987) where it is implicated in cytokinesis (Fujiwara and Pollard, 1976;De Lozanne and Spudich, 1987;Knecht and Loomis, 1987; KitanishiYumura and Fukui, 1989), the control of cell shape (Wessels et al ., 1988), the motility of cells (Yumura et al., 1984;Rubino et al., 1984;Spudich and Spudich, 1982 ;Honer, 1988), the maintenance of cell polarity (Fukui et al., 1990), and the capping of membrane receptor proteins (Pasternak et al ., 1989). In multicellular organisms, myosin II may also play an important role in cell-cell interactions . Studies suggest that actomyosin bands are responsible for folding sheets of epithelia during gastrulation (Odell et al., 1981;Lee et al., 1983) and that myosin II is involved in both mouse morula compaction (Sobel, 1983 ; and resistance to stress in the embryonic chick area opaca (MonnetTschudi and Kucera, 1988) . Other studies involving gene disruption indicate that myosin II is necessary for normal multicellular development in Diciyostelium discoideum (see below) .D. discoideum is a simple, mobile eukaryote that can exist as an amoeba or as a multicellular aggregate (Bonner, 1967;Raper, 1984). D. discoideum thus lends itself to the study of both single cells and three-dimensional tissues. The cytoskeletal proteins ofindividual amoebae have been widely studied (Spudich and Spudich, 1982;Rubino et al., 1984;Fukui et al., 1987;Condeelis et al., 1987;Knecht and Loomis, 1987;De Lozanne and Spudich, 1987;Gerisch et al., 1989), however, those in multicellular aggregates have not .Mutant D. discoideum cells that lack myosin II survive and undergo (albeit slow) amoeboid movement; such cells differentiate into the two types which normally constitute a slug (prestalk and prespore cells) and theyaggregate to form loose mounds ofcells (Knecht and Loomis, 1987 A subpopulation of peripheral and anterior cells label brightly with antimyosin II antibodies, and many of these cells display a polarized intracellular distribution of myosin II. Other cells in the slug label less brightly and their cytoplasm displays a more homogeneous distribution of myosin II. These results provide insight into cell motility within a three-dimensional tissue and they are discussed in relation to the possible roles of myosin II in multicellular development . Wessels et al ., 1988 ;Peters et al ., 1988;Manstein et al., 1989) . Atthis point, development is blocked : aggregates of myosin-deficient mutants fail to become mobile-they do not form slugs with norm...

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The Dictyostelids

Cited by 233 publications

References 0 publications

Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe

Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe

Structured growth and genetic drift raise relatedness in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum

The distribution of myosin II in Dictyostelium discoideum slug cells.

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