How amoeboids self-organize into a fruiting body: Multicellular coordination in Dictyostelium discoideum
AUTOR(ES)
Marée, Athanasius F. M.
FONTE
The National Academy of Sciences
RESUMO
When individual amoebae of the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum are starving, they aggregate to form a multicellular migrating slug, which moves toward a region suitable for culmination. The culmination of the morphogenesis involves complex cell movements that transform a mound of cells into a globule of spores on a slender stalk. The movement has been likened to a “reverse fountain,” whereby prestalk cells in the upper part form a stalk that moves downwards and anchors to the substratum, while prespore cells in the lower part move upwards to form the spore head. So far, however, no satisfactory explanation has been produced for this process. Using a computer simulation that we developed, we now demonstrate that the processes that are essential during the earlier stages of the morphogenesis are in fact sufficient to produce the dynamics of the culmination stage. These processes are cAMP signaling, differential adhesion, cell differentiation, and production of extracellular matrix. Our model clarifies the processes that generate the observed cell movements. More specifically, we show that periodic upward movements, caused by chemotactic motion, are essential for successful culmination, because the pressure waves they induce squeeze the stalk downwards through the cell mass. The mechanisms revealed by our model have a number of self-organizing and self-correcting properties and can account for many previously unconnected and unexplained experimental observations.
ACESSO AO ARTIGO
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=31146Documentos Relacionados
- Designing supramolecular porphyrin arrays that self-organize into nanoscale optical and magnetic materials
- Guanosine metabolism and regulation of fruiting body construction in dictyostelium discoideum.
- Dictyostelium discoideum fruiting bodies observed by scanning electron microscopy.
- Self-induced nystatin resistance in Dictyostelium discoideum.
- Identification of a Self-Inhibitor from Spores of Dictyostelium discoideum