The genome of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum
- L. Eichinger, J. Pachebat, A. Kuspa
- BiologyNature
- 5 May 2005
A proteome-based phylogeny shows that the amoebozoa diverged from the animal–fungal lineage after the plant–animal split, but Dictyostelium seems to have retained more of the diversity of the ancestral genome than have plants, animals or fungi.
Tagging developmental genes in Dictyostelium by restriction enzyme-mediated integration of plasmid DNA.
Electroporating BamHI or EcoRI together with pyr5-6 plasmids cut with the same enzyme stimulates the efficiency of transformation in Dictyostelium discoideum more than 20-fold over the rate seen when plasmid DNA alone is introduced.
Immune-like Phagocyte Activity in the Social Amoeba
- Guokai Chen, O. Zhuchenko, A. Kuspa
- BiologyScience
- 3 August 2007
An apparent innate immune function in social amoebae, and the use of TirA for bacterial feeding, suggest an ancient cellular foraging mechanism that may have been adapted to defense functions well before the diversification of the animals.
Conserved developmental transcriptomes in evolutionarily divergent species
- Anup Y. Parikh, E. R. Miranda, G. Shaulsky
- BiologyGenome Biology
- 17 March 2010
These findings suggest that developmental programs are remarkably conserved at the transcriptome level, considering the great evolutionary distance between the genomes.
A MAP kinase necessary for receptor-mediated activation of adenylyl cyclase in Dictyostelium
Analysis of a developmental mutant in Dictyostelium discoideum which is unable to initiate morphogenesis has shown that a protein kinase of the MAP kinase/ERK family affects relay of the cAMP…
A-signalling and the cell density requirement for Myxococcus xanthus development
- A. Kuspa, L. Plamann, D. Kaiser
- BiologyJournal of Bacteriology
- 1 November 1992
It is proposed that the A-signal is used by M. xanthus to specify the minimum cell density required for the initiation of development, and experiments show that A-factor is important for the development of wild-type cells.
Periodic Signaling Controlled by an Oscillatory Circuit That Includes Protein Kinases ERK2 and PKA
Sp spontaneous oscillations in activation of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase ERK2 that occur in phase with peaks of cAMP are observed, and it is shown that ERK 2 modulates cAMP levels through the phosphodiesterase RegA.
Genes required for developmental signalling in Myxococcus xanthus: three asg loci
The experimental results are consistent with the hypothesis that a deficiency in A-Factor production or release is the primary developmental defect in asg mutants and that aggregation and sporulation depend on A-factor.
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