Dictyostelium discoideum cell development

Kessin, R.H. 1977. Mutations causing rapid development of Dictyostelium discoideum. Cell 10 703-8. 

Dictyostelium discoideum (gene MHCK A [2,14,18] strain JHIO [18] strain Ax-3 [5] two heavy chain kinases one in growth-phase cells and one in starved, developing cells [2,3] isozyme myosin II heavy chain kinase A [5,18]) [1-3, 5, 14, 18]... 

In the slime mould, Dictyostelium discoideum, a STAT-like DNA-binding protein, DIF (the differentiation-inducing factor), is expressed. DIF is about 700 amino-acid residues long, and has substantial homology with mammalian STATs. DIF is, like STAT, activated by phosphorylation of tyrosines. It is essential for differentiation of the stalk cells of D. discoideum A The long evolutionary path that the STATs have travelled from Dictyostelium to mammals underlines their conserved and essential role as signal transmitters and transcriptional activators in early development. 

G. Mangiarotti, S. Bozzaro, S. Landfear, and H.F. Lodish. 1983. Cell-cell contact, cyclic AMP, and gene expression during development of Dictyostelium discoideum Curr. Top. Dev. Biol. 18 117-154. (PubMed)... 

Bonner, J.T. 1947. Evidence for the formation of cell aggregates by chemotaxis in the development of the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. J. Exp. Zool. 106 1-26. 

Devreotes, P.N. 1989. Dictyostelium discoideum A model system for cell-cell interactions in development. Science 245 1054-8. 

The transition of the cellular slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum from the amoebal phase to the aggregation phase initiates the production of discoidin, a cell-surface lectin. This lectin has been resolved into two components that differ in the way that they are regulated during development. 

The glycogen phosphorylase of Dictyostelium discoideum has been purified over 200-fold from cells at the culmination stage of development. The enzyme (mol. wt. 2.1 X 10 subunit mol. wt. 9.5 x 10 ) exhibited normal Michaelis-Menten kinetics, and its activity was not stimulated by AMP it could not be detected during the first five hours of the cell s cycle, but its rate of synthesis increased six-fold between aggregation and culmination, and then decreased to... 

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