scholarly journals Cooperation and conflict in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (8-9-10) ◽  
pp. 371-382
Author(s):  
James M. Medina ◽  
P.M. Shreenidhi ◽  
Tyler J. Larsen ◽  
David C. Queller ◽  
Joan E. Strassmann
Keyword(s):  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Fruiting Body ◽  
Sexual Cycle ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Bacterial Symbionts ◽  
Spore Dispersal ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum has provided considerable insight into the evolution of cooperation and conflict. Under starvation, D. discoideum amoebas cooperate to form a fruiting body comprised of hardy spores atop a stalk. The stalk development is altruistic because stalk cells die to aid spore dispersal. The high relatedness of cells in fruiting bodies in nature implies that this altruism often benefits relatives. However, since the fruiting body forms through aggregation there is potential for non-relatives to join the aggregate and create conflict over spore and stalk fates. Cheating is common in chimeras of social amoebas, where one genotype often takes advantage of the other and makes more spores. This social conflict is a significant force in nature as indicated by rapid rates of adaptive evolution in genes involved in cheating and its resistance. However, cheating can be prevented by high relatedness, allorecognition via tgr genes, pleiotropy and evolved resistance. Future avenues for the study of cooperation and conflict in D. discoideum include the sexual cycle as well as the relationship between D. discoideum and its bacterial symbionts. D. discoideum’s tractability in the laboratory as well as its uncommon mode of aggregative multicellularity have established it as a promising model for future studies of cooperation and conflict.

scholarly journals A complex symbiosis involving within species variation in the response ofDictyosteliumamoebae toBurkholderiabacteria

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longfei Shu ◽  
Debra A. Brock ◽  
Katherine S. Geista ◽  
Jacob W. Miller ◽  
David C. Queller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Species Variation ◽  
Bacterial Symbionts ◽  
Disease Dynamics ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Host Fitness ◽  
Symbiont Type ◽  
The Social

AbstractRecent symbioses, particularly facultative ones, are well suited for unravelling the evolutionary give and take between partners. Here we look at variation in wild-collected samples of the social amoebaDictyostelium discoideumand their relationships with bacterial symbionts,Burkholderia hayleyellaandBurkholderia agricolaris. Only about a third of field-collected amoebae carry a symbiont. We cured and cross-infectedD. discoideumhosts with different symbiont association histories and then compared the responses of the amoebae to each symbiont type. Before curing, field-collected clones did not vary significantly in overall fitness, but infected hosts produced morphologically different multicellular structures. After curing and re-infecting, host fitness declined overall. However, naturalB. hayleyellahosts suffered fewer fitness costs when re-infected withB. hayleyella,indicating that they have evolved mechanisms to tolerate their naturally acquired symbiont. Exploring relationships between endosymbionts and hosts that vary within species may also reveal much about disease dynamics.

scholarly journals Symbiont location, host fitness, and possible coadaptation in a symbiosis between social amoebae and bacteria

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longfei Shu ◽  
Debra A Brock ◽  
Katherine S Geist ◽  
Jacob W Miller ◽  
David C Queller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Host Responses ◽  
Bacterial Symbionts ◽  
Disease Dynamics ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Host Fitness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Natural Isolates ◽  
Social Amoebae

Recent symbioses, particularly facultative ones, are well suited for unravelling the evolutionary give and take between partners. Here we look at variation in natural isolates of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum and their relationships with bacterial symbionts, Burkholderia hayleyella and Burkholderia agricolaris. Only about a third of field-collected amoebae carry a symbiont. We cured and cross-infected amoebae hosts with different symbiont association histories and then compared host responses to each symbiont type. Before curing, field-collected clones did not vary significantly in overall fitness, but infected hosts produced morphologically different multicellular structures. After curing and reinfecting, host fitness declined. However, natural B. hayleyella hosts suffered fewer fitness costs when reinfected with B. hayleyella, indicating that they have evolved mechanisms to tolerate their symbiont. Our work suggests that amoebae hosts have evolved mechanisms to tolerate specific acquired symbionts; exploring host-symbiont relationships that vary within species may provide further insights into disease dynamics.

scholarly journals A Heat Shock Protein 48 (HSP48) Biomolecular Condensate Is Induced duringDictyostelium discoideumDevelopment

mSphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Santarriaga ◽  
Alicia Fikejs ◽  
Jamie Scaglione ◽  
K. Matthew Scaglione
Keyword(s):  
Heat Shock ◽  
Heat Shock Protein ◽  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Fruiting Body ◽  
Developmental Process ◽  
Cellular Stress ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Content Development ◽  
The Social

ABSTRACTThe social amoebaDictyostelium discoideum’s proteome contains a vast array of simple sequence repeats, providing a unique model to investigate proteostasis. Upon conditions of cellular stress,D. discoideumundergoes a developmental process, transitioning from a unicellular amoeba to a multicellular fruiting body. Little is known about how proteostasis is maintained duringD. discoideum’s developmental process. Here, we have identified a novel α-crystallin domain-containing protein, heat shock protein 48 (HSP48), that is upregulated duringD. discoideumdevelopment. HSP48 functions in part by forming a biomolecular condensate via its highly positively charged intrinsically disordered carboxy terminus. In addition to HSP48, the highly negatively charged primordial chaperone polyphosphate is also upregulated duringD. discoideumdevelopment, and polyphosphate functions to stabilize HSP48. Upon germination, levels of both HSP48 and polyphosphate dramatically decrease, consistent with a role for HSP48 and polyphosphate during development. Together, our data demonstrate that HSP48 is strongly induced duringDictyostelium discoideumdevelopment. We also demonstrate that HSP48 forms a biomolecular condensate and that polyphosphate is necessary to stabilize the HSP48 biomolecular condensate.IMPORTANCEDuring cellular stress, many microbes undergo a transition to a dormant state. This includes the social amoebaDictyostelium discoideumthat transitions from a unicellular amoeba to a multicellular fruiting body upon starvation. In this work, we identify heat shock protein 48 (HSP48) as a chaperone that is induced during development. We also show that HSP48 forms a biomolecular condensate and is stabilized by polyphosphate. The findings here identifyDictyostelium discoideumas a novel microbe to investigate protein quality control pathways during the transition to dormancy.

scholarly journals Cyclic dominance emerges from the evolution of two inter-linked cooperative behaviours in the social amoeba

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shota Shibasaki ◽  
Masakazu Shimada
Keyword(s):  
Fruiting Body ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Mating Types ◽  
Cooperative Behaviour ◽  
Fruiting Body Formation ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Body Formation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Multiple Games

AbstractEvolution of cooperation has been one of the most important problems in sociobiology, and many researchers have revealed mechanisms that can facilitate the evolution of cooperation. However, most studies deal only with one cooperative behaviour, even though some organisms perform two or more cooperative behaviours. The social amoebaDictyostelium discoideumperforms two cooperative behaviours in starvation: fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation. Here, we constructed a model that couples these two behaviours, and we found that the two behaviours are maintained due to the emergence of cyclic dominance, although cooperation cannot evolve if only either of the two behaviours is performed. The common chemoattractant cyclic AMP is used in both fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation, providing a biological context for this coupling. Cyclic dominance emerges regardless of the existence of mating types or spatial structure in the model. In addition, cooperation can re-emerge in the population even after it goes extinct. These results indicate that the two cooperative behaviours of the social amoeba are maintained due to the common chemical signal that underlies both fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation. We demonstrate the importance of coupling multiple games when the underlying behaviours are associated with one another.

scholarly journals Cyclic dominance emerges from the evolution of two inter-linked cooperative behaviours in the social amoeba

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1881) ◽  
pp. 20180905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shota Shibasaki ◽  
Masakazu Shimada
Keyword(s):  
Fruiting Body ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Mating Types ◽  
Cooperative Behaviour ◽  
Fruiting Body Formation ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Body Formation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Multiple Games

Evolution of cooperation has been one of the most important problems in sociobiology, and many researchers have revealed mechanisms that can facilitate the evolution of cooperation. However, most studies deal only with one cooperative behaviour, even though some organisms perform two or more cooperative behaviours. The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum performs two cooperative behaviours in starvation: fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation. Here, we constructed a model that couples these two behaviours, and we found that the two behaviours are maintained because of the emergence of cyclic dominance, although cooperation cannot evolve if only either of the two behaviours is performed. The common chemoattractant cyclic adenosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cAMP) is used in both fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation, providing a biological context for this coupling. Cyclic dominance emerges regardless of the existence of mating types or spatial structure in the model. In addition, cooperation can re-emerge in the population even after it goes extinct. These results indicate that the two cooperative behaviours of the social amoeba are maintained because of the common chemical signal that underlies both fruiting body formation and macrocyst formation. We demonstrate the importance of coupling multiple games when the underlying behaviours are associated with one another.

scholarly journals A Surface Glycoprotein Indispensable for Gamete Fusion in the Social Amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 638-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshinori Araki ◽  
Hideki D. Shimizu ◽  
Kentaro Saeki ◽  
Marina Okamoto ◽  
Lixy Yamada ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Adhesion ◽  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Mating Type ◽  
Surface Glycoprotein ◽  
Sexual Cycle ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
The Social

ABSTRACT Sexual reproduction is essential for the maintenance of species in a wide variety of multicellular organisms, and even unicellular organisms that normally proliferate asexually possess a sexual cycle because of its contribution to increased genetic diversity. Information concerning the molecules involved in fertilization is accumulating for many species of the metazoan, plant, and fungal lineages, and the evolutionary consideration of sexual reproduction systems is now an interesting issue. Macrocyst formation in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is a sexual process in which cells become sexually mature under dark and submerged conditions and fuse with complementary mating-type cells. In the present study, we isolated D. discoideum insertional mutants defective in sexual cell fusion and identified the relevant gene, macA , which encodes a highly glycosylated, 2,041-amino-acid membrane protein (MacA). Although its overall similarity is restricted to proteins of unknown function within dictyostelids, it contains LamGL and discoidin domains, which are implicated in cell adhesion. The growth and development of macA -null mutants were indistinguishable from those of the parental strain. The overexpression of macA using the V18 promoter in a macA -null mutant completely restored its sexual defects. Although the macA gene encoded exactly the same protein in a complementary mating-type strain, it was expressed at a much lower level. These results suggest that MacA is indispensable for gamete interactions in D. discoideum , probably via cell adhesion. There is a possibility that it is controlled in a mating-type-dependent manner.

scholarly journals Amino Acid Repeats Cause Extraordinary Coding Sequence Variation in the Social Amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. e46150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clea Scala ◽  
Xiangjun Tian ◽  
Natasha J. Mehdiabadi ◽  
Margaret H. Smith ◽  
Gerda Saxer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acid ◽  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Sequence Variation ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
Coding Sequence ◽  
Amino Acid Repeats ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Microbe Profile: Dictyostelium discoideum: model system for development, chemotaxis and biomedical research

Microbiology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine J. Pears ◽  
Julian D. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Formation ◽  
Cell Motility ◽  
Dictyostelium Discoideum ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Model System ◽  
Developmental Pattern ◽  
Social Amoeba ◽  
The Social ◽  
Host Pathogen ◽  
Soil Amoeba

The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is a versatile organism that is unusual in alternating between single-celled and multi-celled forms. It possesses highly-developed systems for cell motility and chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and developmental pattern formation. As a soil amoeba growing on microorganisms, it is exposed to many potential pathogens; it thus provides fruitful ways of investigating host-pathogen interactions and is emerging as an influential model for biomedical research.

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