... interests statement © 2011. Evolution of multicellularity Social amoeba Encystation Sporulation Dictyostelium The social amoebas, or Dictyostelia , are a group of organisms that become multicellular by aggregation and then proceed to build fruiting bodies that consist...

... in animals, control sporulation, while cytokinins, which act as hormones in plants, keep spores dormant. When SDF-2 binds its receptor DhkA, it reduces the activity of the cAMP phosphodiesterase RegA such that cAMP levels can increase. It has been proposed that the cytokinin discadenine also produces...

...Elisa Alvarez-Curto; Shweta Saran; Marcel Meima; Jenny Zobel; Claire Scott; Pauline Schaap Encystation and sporulation are crucial developmental transitions for solitary and social amoebae, respectively. Whereas little is known of encystation, sporulation requires both extra- and intracellular cAMP...

... in Dictyostelium and is also able to inhibit induction of sporulation by SDF-2. The signal transduction pathway from SDF-2 is independent of the GABA/glutamate signal transduction pathway,but the two appear to converge to control release of AcbA and exposure of TagC protease. These results indicate that GABA...

... Adenylyl cyclase ACR cAMP-dependent protein kinase PKA Sporulation Dictyostelium Genes encoding three distinct adenylyl cyclases have been characterized and shown to be expressed at different stages of development in Dictyostelium ( Pitt et al., 1992 ; Soderbom et al., 1999 ). acaA...

... aggregation fails to occur in acrA − cells. As long as ACA is fully active, ACR is not required until culmination but then plays a critical role in sporulation and construction of the stalk. * Author for correspondence (e-mail: wloomis@ucsd.edu ) 20 09 1999 09 11 1999 © 1999 by Company...

... of the human, Drosophila and yeast homologs. srfA is a developmentally regulated gene expressed in prespore and spore cells. This gene plays an essential role in sporulation as its disruption leads to abnormal spore morphology and loss of viability. The mutant spores were round and cellulose deposition seemed...

... of Dictyostelium , which was recovered in a mutant screen for strains that sporulate in the absence of signals from prestalk cells. The sequence of RegA predicts that it will function as a member of a two-component system. Genetic analyses indicate that inhibition of the phosphodiesterase results in an increase...

... sporulation phosphorylation differentiation Dictyostelium protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) Protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) are key elements of signal transduction pathways that regulate cell proliferation and differentiation during development in multicellular eukaryotes. We have begun studying...