scholarly journals The Dictyostelium discoideum model system

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (8-9-10) ◽  
pp. 317-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Escalante ◽  
Elena Cardenal-Muñoz

When we set out to organize this Special Issue, we faced the difficult task of gathering together a large variety of topics with the unique commonality of having been studied in a single model organism, Dictyostelium discoideum. This apparent setback turned into a wonderful opportunity to learn about an organism as a whole, which provides a more complete understanding of life processes, their natural meaning and their changes during evolution. From studies dedicated almost exclusively to cell motility, differentiation and patterning, the versatility of D. discoideum has allowed in recent years the expansion of our knowledge to other areas, including cell biology and many others related to human diseases. The present collection of papers can be considered as a journey throughout the mechanisms of life, where D. discoideum acts as a very special tourist guide.

Microbiology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine J. Pears ◽  
Julian D. Gross

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (8-9-10) ◽  
pp. 551-561
Author(s):  
David A. Knecht ◽  
Kate M. Cooper ◽  
Jonathan E. Moore

The Dictyostelium discoideum model system is a powerful tool for undergraduate cell biology teaching laboratories. The cells are biologically safe, grow at room temperature and it is easy to experimentally induce, observe, and perturb a breadth of cellular processes making the system amenable to many teaching lab situations and goals. Here we outline the advantages of Dictyostelium, discuss laboratory courses we teach in three very different educational settings, and provide tips for both the novice and experienced Dictyostelium researcher. With this article and the extensive sets of protocols and tools referenced here, implementing these labs, or parts of them, will be relatively straightforward for any instructor.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Lisa Maves

For this Special Issue “Zebrafish-A Model System for Developmental Biology Study,” we present a collection of studies, including original research papers and review articles, that focus on advances in developmental biology research and that take advantage of the zebrafish model organism [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Sudhakar Sivasubramaniam ◽  

The earthworm, Eudrilus eugeniae is an economical model system for cell and molecular biological experiments to study regeneration and stem cell biology. The purpose of this brief review is to summarize those published studies on the regeneration biology using E. eugenia and to provide the advantages of the model system.


Genetics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 148 (4) ◽  
pp. 1829-1832 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Francis

Abstract Analysis of Dictyostelium development and cell biology has suffered from the lack of an ordinary genetic system whereby genes can be arranged in new combinations. Genetic exchange between two long ignored strains, A2Cycr and WS205 is here reexamined. Alleles which differ in size or restriction sites between these two strains were found for seven genes. Six of these are in two clusters on chromosome 2. Frequencies of recombinant progeny indicate that the genetic map of the two mating strains is colinear with the physical map recently worked out for the standard nonsexual strain, NC4. The rate of recombination is high, about 0.1% per kilobase in three different regions of chromosome 2. This value is comparable to rates found in yeast, and will permit fine dissection of the genome.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Sarah-Maria Wege ◽  
Katharina Gejer ◽  
Fabienne Becker ◽  
Michael Bölker ◽  
Johannes Freitag ◽  
...  

The phytopathogenic smut fungus Ustilago maydis is a versatile model organism to study plant pathology, fungal genetics, and molecular cell biology. Here, we report several strategies to manipulate the genome of U. maydis by the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. These include targeted gene deletion via homologous recombination of short double-stranded oligonucleotides, introduction of point mutations, heterologous complementation at the genomic locus, and endogenous N-terminal tagging with the fluorescent protein mCherry. All applications are independent of a permanent selectable marker and only require transient expression of the endonuclease Cas9hf and sgRNA. The techniques presented here are likely to accelerate research in the U. maydis community but can also act as a template for genome editing in other important fungi.


1991 ◽  
Vol 115 (5) ◽  
pp. 1267-1274 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Eliott ◽  
P H Vardy ◽  
K L Williams

While the role of myosin II in muscle contraction has been well characterized, less is known about the role of myosin II in non-muscle cells. Recent molecular genetic experiments on Dictyostelium discoideum show that myosin II is necessary for cytokinesis and multicellular development. Here we use immunofluorescence microscopy with monoclonal and polyclonal antimyosin antibodies to visualize myosin II in cells of the multicellular D. discoideum slug. A subpopulation of peripheral and anterior cells label brightly with antimyosin II antibodies, and many of these cells display a polarized intracellular distribution of myosin II. Other cells in the slug label less brightly and their cytoplasm displays a more homogeneous distribution of myosin II. These results provide insight into cell motility within a three-dimensional tissue and they are discussed in relation to the possible roles of myosin II in multicellular development.


2006 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preetinder K. Dhanoa ◽  
Alison M. Sinclair ◽  
Robert T. Mullen ◽  
Jaideep Mathur

The discovery and development of multicoloured fluorescent proteins has led to the exciting possibility of observing a remarkable array of subcellular structures and dynamics in living cells. This minireview highlights a number of the more common fluorescent protein probes in plants and is a testimonial to the fact that the plant cell has not lagged behind during the live-imaging revolution and is ready for even more in-depth exploration.


Biosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 257
Author(s):  
Sebastian Fudickar ◽  
Eike Jannik Nustede ◽  
Eike Dreyer ◽  
Julia Bornhorst

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is an important model organism for studying molecular genetics, developmental biology, neuroscience, and cell biology. Advantages of the model organism include its rapid development and aging, easy cultivation, and genetic tractability. C. elegans has been proven to be a well-suited model to study toxicity with identified toxic compounds closely matching those observed in mammals. For phenotypic screening, especially the worm number and the locomotion are of central importance. Traditional methods such as human counting or analyzing high-resolution microscope images are time-consuming and rather low throughput. The article explores the feasibility of low-cost, low-resolution do-it-yourself microscopes for image acquisition and automated evaluation by deep learning methods to reduce cost and allow high-throughput screening strategies. An image acquisition system is proposed within these constraints and used to create a large data-set of whole Petri dishes containing C. elegans. By utilizing the object detection framework Mask R-CNN, the nematodes are located, classified, and their contours predicted. The system has a precision of 0.96 and a recall of 0.956, resulting in an F1-Score of 0.958. Considering only correctly located C. elegans with an [email protected] IoU, the system achieved an average precision of 0.902 and a corresponding F1 Score of 0.906.


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