dictyNews Volume 38 Number 28

Published in

· 1 year ago

dictyNews 
Electronic Edition 
Volume 38, number 28 
November 9, 2012 

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. 

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

 
Simple system - substantial share: The use of Dictyostelium in  
cell biology and molecular medicine (Review) 

Annette Mller-Taubenberger (a), Arjan Kortholt (b), Ludwig Eichinger (c) 

(a) Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology, Ludwig Maximilian  
University of Munich, Schillerstr. 42, 80336 Munich, Germany 
(b) Department of Cell Biochemistry, University of Groningen,  
Nijenborgh 7, 9747AG Groningen, The Netherlands  
(c) Institute for Biochemistry I, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne,  
Joseph-Stelzmann-Str. 52, 50931 Cologne, Germany 

 
European Journal of Cell Biology, in press 

Dictyostelium discoideum offers unique advantages for studying  
fundamental cellular processes, host pathogen interactions as well  
as the molecular causes of human diseases. The organism can be  
easily grown in large amounts and is amenable to diverse biochemical,  
cell biological and genetic approaches. Throughout their life cycle  
Dictyostelium cells are motile, and thus are perfectly suited to study  
random and directed cell motility with the underlying changes in signal  
transduction and the actin cytoskeleton. Dictyostelium is also  
increasingly used for the investigation of human disease genes and  
the crosstalk between host and pathogen. As a professional phagocyte  
it can be infected with several human bacterial pathogens and used to  
study the infection process. The availability of a large number of  
knock-out mutants renders Dictyostelium particularly useful for the  
elucidation and investigation of host cell factors. A powerful armoury  
of molecular genetic techniques that have been continuously  
expanded over the years and a well curated genome sequence,  
which is accessible via the online database dictyBase, considerably  
strengthened DictyosteliumÕs experimental attractiveness and its  
value as model organism. 

 
  
Submitted by Annette Mller-Taubenberger [amueller@lrz.uni-muenchen.de]  
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[End dictyNews, volume 38, number 28]