dictyNews

Electronic Edition

Volume 45, number 22

August 30, 2019



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Abstracts

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Individual and collective behaviour in cellular slime mould development: 

contributions of John Bonner



Vidyanand Nanjundiah



Centre for Human Genetics, Bangalore 560100, India; 





Int J Dev Biol, Special Edition 

edited by Ricardo Escalante & Elena Cardenal, in press



John Bonner used the cellular slime moulds to address issues that lie at 

the heart of evolutionary and developmental biology. He did so mostly by 

combining acute observation and a knack for asking the right question 

with the methods of classical embryology. The present paper focusses on 

his contributions to understanding two phenomena that are characteristic 

of development in general: chemotaxis of single cells to an external 

attractant, and spatial patterning and proportioning of cell types in the 

multicellular aggregate. Brief mention is also made of other areas of slime 

mould biology where he made significant inputs.  He saw cellular slime 

moulds as exemplars of development and worthy of study in their own 

right. His ideas continue to inspire researchers.





submitted by:  Vidya Nanjundiah [[log in to unmask]]

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Actin assembly states in Dictyostelium discoideum at different stages of 

development and during cellular stress



Hellen C. Ishikawa-Ankerhold1 and Annette Müller-Taubenberger2



1Department of Internal Medicine I, LMU, and Walter Brendel Centre of 

Experimental Medicine, LMU Munich, 81377 Munich, and 2Department 

of Cell Biology (Anatomy III), Biomedical Center, LMU Munich, 82152 

Planegg-Martinsried, Germany





Int J Dev Biol, Special Edition

edited by Ricardo Escalante & Elena Cardenal, in press



The actin cytoskeleton of non-muscle cells is essential for cellular 

structure and subcellular organization, and the dynamic regulation 

of actin assembly and disassembly is a prerequisite for motility. 

Pioneering work using Dictyostelium discoideum focused on the 

biochemical analysis of non-muscle actin, the identification of actin-

regulating proteins and their specific functions during processes like 

cell migration, cytokinesis, phagocytosis, and morphogenesis. Although 

subsequent work in higher eukaryotes revealed that the processes 

regulating actin dynamics are often much more complex, results 

obtained by using Dictyostelium have been of fundamental importance 

because they have contributed significantly to our understanding of the 

actin cytoskeleton in higher eukaryotes. Dictyostelium is an accepted 

model system for studying fast moving cells, because the single cells 

of the organism share many similarities with cells of the immune system 

such as human neutrophils. Here we provide a brief overview on the 

milestones of research of the actin cytoskeleton taking advantage of 

Dictyostelium. Furthermore, we summarize how actin structures and 

cytoskeletal dynamics at different stages of development have been 

visualized, and give an overview on the current focus of research. In 

addition, we discuss results showing actin assembly states during 

phases of cellular stress and how stress-induced actin assembly 

states may contribute to our understanding of certain diseases.





submitted by:  Annette Müller-Taubenberger [[log in to unmask]]

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Dictyostelium as model for studying ubiquitination and deubiquitination



Pergolizzi Barbara1, Bozzaro Salvatore1 and Bracco Enrico2



1Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences  

2Department of Oncology, University of Torino, AOU 

S. Luigi, 10043 Orbassano (TO) 





Int J Dev Biol, Special Edition 

edited by Ricardo Escalante & Elena Cardenal, in press



By protein quality control and degradation, the ubiquitin system drives 

many essential regulatory processes such as cell cycle and division, 

signalling, DNA replication and repair. Therefore, dysfunctions in the 

ubiquitin system lead to many human disease states. However, despite 

the immense progress made over the last couple of decades it appears 

that the ubiquitin system is more complex and multi-faced than formerly 

expected. In addition to a rich repertoire of ubiquitin, ubiquitin conjugating 

and de-ubiquitylating enzymes, the social amoeba Dictyostelium 

discoideum genome encodes also for a wide array of ubiquitin binding 

domain-containing proteins, thus offering the possibility to explore the 

biology of the ubiquitin system from cell and molecular biology point of 

view. We here provide an overview on the current knowledge about the 

Ub-system components and we are going to discuss how Dictyostelium 

might be an outstanding eukaryotic cell model for unravelling the still 

mostly unknown ubiquitination mechanisms of some human diseases.





submitted by: Barbara Pergolizzi [[log in to unmask]]

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[End dictyNews, volume 45, number 22]