dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 46, number 33
December 18, 2020
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Abstracts
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Cancer and the breakdown of multicellularity: What Dictyostelium
discoideum, a social amoeba, can teach us
Sabateeshan Mathavarajah1, Carter VanIderstine1, Graham
Dellaire1,2, Robert J. Huber3
1Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of
Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
3Department of Biology, Trent University, Peterborough,
Ontario, Canada
BioEssays, in press
Ancient pathways promoting unicellularity and multicellularity are
associated with cancer, the former being pro-oncogenic and the
latter acting to suppress oncogenesis. However, there are only a
limited number of non-vertebrate models for studying these
pathways. Here we review Dictyostelium discoideum and describe
how it can be used to understand these gene networks.
D.discoideum has a unicellular and multicellular life cycle, making
it possible to study orthologs of cancer-associated genes in both
phases. During development, differentiated amoebae form a fruiting
body composed of a mass of spores that are supported atop a stalk.
A portion of the cells sacrifice themselves to become non-reproductive
stalk cells. Cheating disrupts the principles of multicellularity, as
cheater cells alter their cell fate to preferentially become spores.
Importantly, D.discoideum has gene networks and several strategies
for maintaining multicellularity. Therefore, D.discoideum can help us
better understand how conserved genes and pathways involved in
multicellularity also influence cancer development, potentially
identifying new therapeutic avenues.
submitted by: Robert Huber [[log in to unmask]]
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