How amoeboids self-organize into a fruiting body: multicellular coordination in Dictyostelium discoideum.

ABSTRACT: 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

SUBMITTER: Maree AF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC31146 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature