Dictyostelium discoideum chemotaxis

Dictyostelium discoideum is a cellular slime mold, an amoeba. It is a preferred object for the study of cell locomotion, chemotaxis and differentiation. 

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. 

Darmon, M. P. Brachet. 1978. Chemotaxis and differentiation during the aggregation of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae. In Taxis and Behavior. Receptors and Recognition. Ser. B, Vol. 5. G.L. Hazelbauer, ed. Chapman Hall, London, pp. 103-39. 

Steinbock, O., H. Hashimoto S.C. Muller. 1991. Quantitative analysis of periodic chemotaxis in aggregation patterns of Dictyostelium discoideum. Physica 49D 233-9. 

Key words Chemotaxis, Dictyostelium discoideum, PIP3, PKB, TorC2... 

Franca-Koh, J., Kamimura Y., and Devreotes, P. N. (2006) Navigating signaling networks Chemotaxis in Dictyostelium discoideum. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 16, 333-338. 

Veltman, D. M., KeizerGimnik, I., and Van Haastert, P. J. (2008) Four key signaling pathways mediating chemotaxis in Dictyostelium discoideum. J. Cell Biol. 180, 747-753. 

E., and Soil, D. R. (1987) Amoebae of Dictyostelium discoideum respond to an increasing temporal gradient of the chemoattractant cAMP with a reduced frequency of turning evidence for a temporal mechanism in ameboid chemotaxis. Cell Motil. Cytoskeleton. 8, 7-17. 

Swanson, J. A. and Taylor, D. L. (1982) Local and spatially coordinated movements in Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae dining chemotaxis. Cell. 28, 225-232. 

Fisher, P.R., Merkl, R. and Gerisch, G. (1989). Quantitative analysis of cell motility and chemotaxis in Dictyostelium discoideum by using an image processing system and a novel chemotaxis chamber providing stationaiy chemical gradients. /. Cell Biol. 108, 973-984. 

Newell, PC., Europe Finner, G.N. and Small, N.V. (1987). Signal transduction during amoebal chemotaxis of Dictyostelium discoideum. Microbiol. Sci. 4, 5-11. 

Over the past 40 years, numerous modeling studies have focused on the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. This is because D. discoideum provides an experimentally accessible and relatively simple system for studying key developmental processes like chemotaxis, cell sorting, and complex pattern formation. Early studies adopted continuous models [77-80]. More recent studies used elegant hybrid approaches that combined CA models and partial differential equations to model 2D and 3D problems involving aggregation and self-organization ofD. discoideum [81-84]. 

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