Myxomycetes plasmodium

Slime- Mold-like Resembling a Myxomycete plasmodium. 

Waggoner, B. M. Poinar, G. O. (1992). A fossil myxomycete plasmodium from Eocene-Oligocene amber of the Dominican Republic. Journal of Protozoology, 39, 639 2. 

Kamiya, N. Abe, S. Bioelectric phenomena in the myxomycete plasmodium and their relation to protoplasmic flow. J. Colloid. Sci. 1950, 5, 149. 

ABSTRACT The Myxomycetes (true slime molds) are an unusual group of primitive organisms that may be assigned to one of the lowest classes of eukaryotes. As their fruit bodies are very small and it is very difficult to collect much quantity of slime molds, few studies have been made on the chemistry of myxomycetes. Cultivation of the plasmodium of myxomycetes in a practical scale for natural products chemistry studies is known only for very limited species such as Physarum polyeephalum. We recently studied the laboratory-cultivation of myxomycetes and several species have been successfully cultured in agar plates. Chemical constituents of cultured plasmodia of several species of myxomycetes of the genera Didymium and Physarum were examined to obtain several sterols, new lipid, or pyrroloiminoquinone derivatives. Previous studies on the chemistry of the secondary metabolites of myxomycetes by other groups are also described here. 

Steglich [3] and Asakawa s group [4] have isolated several types of metabolites from field-collected samples of several myxomycete species. Cultivation of the plasmodium of myxomycetes in a considerable scale to cany out chemical studies is known only for... 

Compounds described above are all those isolated from wild myxomycetes in the stage of fruit bodies in their lifecycle. In the lifecycle of myxomycetes (Figure 1), there is a stage of plasmodium before that of fruit body. A few studies of chemical constituents of plasmodial stages of myxomycetes have been described. 

Cultivation of the plasmodium of myxomycetes in a practical scale has been known only for very limited species. Physarum polycephalum may be the most familiar species of myxomycetes because of the ease with which its plasmodium may be grown in the laboratory. It has been therefore used extensively in physiological, biochemical, and genetic studies as well as in schools for model organisms. Mass culture of the plasmodia of Physarum polycephalum... 

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