dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 38, number 28
November 9, 2012

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Abstracts
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Simple system - substantial share: The use of Dictyostelium in 
cell biology and molecular medicine (Review)

Annette Müller-Taubenberger (a), Arjan Kortholt (b), Ludwig Eichinger (c)

(a) Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology, Ludwig Maximilian 
University of Munich, Schillerstr. 42, 80336 Munich, Germany
(b) Department of Cell Biochemistry, University of Groningen, 
Nijenborgh 7, 9747AG Groningen, The Netherlands 
(c) Institute for Biochemistry I, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, 
Joseph-Stelzmann-Str. 52, 50931 Cologne, Germany


European Journal of Cell Biology, in press

Dictyostelium discoideum offers unique advantages for studying 
fundamental cellular processes, host pathogen interactions as well 
as the molecular causes of human diseases. The organism can be 
easily grown in large amounts and is amenable to diverse biochemical, 
cell biological and genetic approaches. Throughout their life cycle 
Dictyostelium cells are motile, and thus are perfectly suited to study 
random and directed cell motility with the underlying changes in signal 
transduction and the actin cytoskeleton. Dictyostelium is also 
increasingly used for the investigation of human disease genes and 
the crosstalk between host and pathogen. As a professional phagocyte 
it can be infected with several human bacterial pathogens and used to 
study the infection process. The availability of a large number of 
knock-out mutants renders Dictyostelium particularly useful for the 
elucidation and investigation of host cell factors. A powerful armoury 
of molecular genetic techniques that have been continuously 
expanded over the years and a well curated genome sequence, 
which is accessible via the online database dictyBase, considerably 
strengthened Dictyostelium’s experimental attractiveness and its 
value as model organism.


 
Submitted by Annette Müller-Taubenberger [[log in to unmask]] 
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[End dictyNews, volume 38, number 28]