Inactivation of the Dictyostelium orthologue of the tumour suppressor Neurofibromin (NF1) enables amoebae to ingest dissolved nutrients using macropinocytosis more rapidly, and to prey on larger organisms using phagocytosis.
The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum employs a terpene synthase-cytochrome P450 metabolic gene cluster to produce a novel trisnorsesquiterpene discodiene.
The probability of a cellular response to a differentiation inducing signal is correlated with the dynamic expression of a Ras protein, and produces a ‘salt and pepper’ pattern of cell differentiation.
Efficient dedifferentiation is characterized by robustness to mutation, flexibility in ordering of cellular events and reversal of developmental changes along a single gene expression trajectory.
Transient cell-cell contact of eukaryotic cells, called contact following locomotion, causes cell density segregation, and its high-density region traveled as a band within the disordered background.
Eukaryotic chemotaxis to live bacteria was quantified at a high throughput level, for the first time, and mechanistically examined for the interrelationship between chemotaxis and phagocytosis.
Computational and experimental studies show that different migration modes of eukaryotic cells are the result of the interplay between signaling waves and cell mechanics.
Morphological and fitness defects imposed on amoebae hosts by Burkholderia symbionts demonstrates symbiont species-specific effects and provides evidence of host adaptation to naturally acquired symbionts.
A missing link between the AP complexes and COPI sheds light on the evolution of vesicle coat proteins and trafficking pathways in the earliest eukaryotes.
