An autoregulatory circuit for long-range self-organization in Dictyostelium cell populations
- 1 January 2005
- journal article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature
- Vol. 433 (7023), 323-326
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03228
Abstract
Nutrient-deprived Dictyostelium amoebae aggregate to form a multicellular structure by chemotaxis, moving towards propagating waves of cyclic AMP that are relayed from cell to cell. Organizing centres are not formed by founder cells, but are dynamic entities consisting of cores of outwardly rotating spiral waves that self-organize in a homogeneous cell population. Spiral waves are ubiquitously observed in chemical reactions as well as in biological systems. Although feedback control of spiral waves in spatially extended chemical reactions has been demonstrated in recent years, the mechanism by which control is achieved in living systems is unknown. Here we show that mutants of the cyclic AMP/protein kinase A pathway show periodic signalling, but fail to organize coherent long-range wave territories, owing to the appearance of numerous spiral cores. A theoretical model suggests that autoregulation of cell excitability mediated by protein kinase A acts to optimize the number of signalling centres.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Periodic Signaling Controlled by an Oscillatory Circuit That Includes Protein Kinases ERK2 and PKAScience, 2004
- Genome-Wide Expression Analyses of Gene Regulation during Early Development of Dictyostelium discoideumEukaryotic Cell, 2003
- Dynamics of Spiral Waves under Phase Feedback Control in a Belousov-Zhabotinsky ReactionPhysical Review Letters, 2002
- Controlling Chemical Turbulence by Global Delayed Feedback: Pattern Formation in Catalytic CO Oxidation on Pt(110)Science, 2001
- Green fluorescent protein production in the cellular slime molds Polysphondylium pallidum and Dictyostelium discoideumGene, 1995
- A MAP kinase necessary for receptor-mediated activation of adenylyl cyclase in Dictyostelium.The Journal of cell biology, 1995
- Culmination in dictyostelium is regulated by the cAMP-dependent protein kinaseCell, 1992
- Mutation of protein kinase A causes heterochronic development of DictyosteliumNature, 1992
- Stationary and drifting spiral waves of excitation in isolated cardiac muscleNature, 1992
- Spiral Calcium Wave Propagation and Annihilation in Xenopus laevis OocytesScience, 1991