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Altered cGMP‐phosphodiesterase activity in chemotactic mutants of Dictyostelium discoideum
Author(s) -
van Haastert Peter J.M.,
van Lookeren Campagne Michiel M.,
Ross Fiona M.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(82)81029-6
Subject(s) - population , morphogenesis , dictyostelium discoideum , biology , genetics , gene , demography , sociology
Chemotaxis is very important during the whole life cycle of the cellular slime molds. In the vegetative stage the amoebae have to find their bacterial food in the soil which they inhabit. At this time, the amoebae are chemotactic to folic acid and pterin [ 1,2], both of which are excreted by bacteria; therefore it seems probable that this mechanism is used to find food [l]. When the food source is exhausted the amoebae aggregate to form a multicellular slug which then differentiates into a fruiting body. Different species of slime mold use different compounds as the chemoattractant for this aggregation. The best studied system is Dictyostelium discoideum which utilizes pulsatile signals of CAMP [3]; however, chemoattractants from other species have been partially purified [4,5]. of the change during chemotactic stimulation [14,15] which suggests that it may play an important role in the transduction of the signal.