dictyNews Volume 28 Number 17

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dictyNews 
Electronic Edition 
Volume 28, number 17 
June 16, 2007 

Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been 
accepted for publication by sending them to dicty@northwestern.edu 
or by using the form at 
http://dictybase.org/db/cgi-bin/dictyBase/abstract_submit. 

Back issues of dictyNews, the Dicty Reference database and other 
useful information is available at dictyBase - http://dictybase.org. 

 
========= 
Abstracts 
========= 

DRpp20 and DRpp40: two protein subunits involved in Dictyostelium discoideum  
ribonuclease P holoenzyme assembly 

Dimitra Kalavrizioti, Anastassios Vourekas and Denis Drainas 
Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Patras, Greece. 

Accepted for publication, Gene 

Abstract 
Ribonuclease P is an essential enzyme that matures the 5´ ends of all primary  
tRNA transcripts. RNase P enzymes contain a similar in size RNA subunit which  
is absolutely required for catalysis.  The holoenzyme from Dictyostelium  
discoideum possesses an essential for activity RNA subunit  but the exact  
protein composition is still under investigation. Bioinformatic analysis of  
D. discoideum sequencing data returned seven ORFs homologous to previously characterized  
RNase P protein subunits from human. In the present study, DRpp20 and DRpp40 were cloned  
and characterized. These proteins apart from the noted similarity, possess idiosyncratic  
regions.  Immunobiochemichal analysis presented herein indicates their direct involvement  
in the  formation of the ribonucleoprotein complex of D. discoideum RNase P holoenzyme.  

Submitted by: Denis Drainas [Drainas@med.upatras.gr] 

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The Cold War of the Social Amoebae 

 
Gad Shaulsky and Richard H. Kessin  
Department of Molecular and Human Genetics 
Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas, 77030. USA and 
Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, 630 West 168th St.  
New York, New York, 10027, USA 

Accepted, Current Biology   

 
Abstract: When confronted with starvation, the amoebae of Dictyostelium discoideum  
initiate a developmental process that begins with cell aggregation and ends with  
a ball of spores supported on a stalk. Spores live and stalk cells die. Because the  
organism is created by cell aggregation and not by growth and division of a single cell,  
genetically diverse amoebae may enter an aggregate and if one lineage has a capacity  
to avoid the stalk cell fate, it may have a selective advantage. Such cheater mutants  
have been found among wild isolates and created in laboratory strains. The mutants  
raise a number of questions ­ how did such a cooperative system evolve in the face  
of cheating? What is the basis of self recognition? What genes are involved?  
How is cheating constrained?  This review summarizes the results of studies  
on the social behavior of Dictyostelium and its relatives, including the familiar  
asexual developmental cycle and the less known, but puzzling sexual cycle. 

 
Submitted by: Rich Kessin [rhk2@columbia.edu] 
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[End dictyNews, volume 28, number 17]