dictyNews

Electronic Edition

Volume 46, number 8

March 13, 2020



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Abstracts

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 GoldenBraid cloning system for synthetic biology in social amoebae



Peter Kundert, Alejandro Sarrion-Perdigones, Yezabel Gonzalez, 

Mariko Katoh-Kurasawa, Shigenori Hirose, Peter Lehmann, 

Koen J.T. Venken, and Gad Shaulsky



Baylor College of Medicine





Accepted for publication in Nucleic Acids Research



GoldenBraid is a rapid, modular, and robust cloning system used to 

assemble and combine genetic elements. Dictyostelium amoebae 

represent an intriguing synthetic biological chassis with tractable 

applications in development, chemotaxis, bacteria-host interactions, 

and allorecognition. We present GoldenBraid as a synthetic biological 

framework for Dictyostelium, including a library of 250 DNA parts and 

assemblies and a proof of concept strain that illustrates cAMP-

chemotaxis with four fluorescent reporters coded by one plasmid.





submitted by: Gad Shaulsky  [[log in to unmask]]

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How cortical waves drive fission of motile cells



Sven Flemming 1, Francesc Font 2,3, Sergio Alonso 2, and 

Carsten Beta 1,4



1 Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, Germany

2 Department of Physics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, 

Spain

3 Centre de Recerca Matemàtica, Barcelona, Spain

4 Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, 

Germany





Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912428117



Cytokinesis—the division of a cell into two daughter cells—is a key step 

in cell growth and proliferation. It typically occurs in synchrony with the 

cell cycle to ensure that a complete copy of the genetic information is 

passed on to the next generation of daughter cells. In animal cells, 

cytokinesis commonly relies on an actomyosin contractile ring that drives 

equatorial furrowing and separation into the two daughter cells. However, 

also contractile ring-independent forms of cell division are known that 

depend on substrate-mediated traction forces. Here, we report evidence 

of an as yet unknown type of contractile ring-independent cytokinesis that 

we termed wave-mediated cytofission. It is driven by self-organized 

cortical actin waves that travel across the ventral membrane of oversized, 

multinucleated Dictyostelium discoideum cells. Upon collision with the cell 

border, waves may initiate the formation of protrusions that elongate and 

eventually pinch off to form separate daughter cells. They are composed 

of a stable elongated wave segment that is enclosed by a cell membrane 

and moves in a highly persistent fashion. We rationalize our observations 

based on a noisy excitable reaction–diffusion model in combination with a 

dynamic phase field to account for the cell shape and demonstrate that 

daughter cells emerging from wave-mediated cytofission exhibit a 

well-controlled size.





submitted by:  Sven Flemming [[log in to unmask]]

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[End dictyNews, volume 46, number 8]