Chapter 4 - Bibliography

Berks, M. and R. R. Kay. 1990. Combinatorial control of differentiation by cAMP and DIF-1 during development of Dictyostelium discoideum. Development 110: 977–984. The authors show that differentiation-inducing factor (DIF) is crucial to the differentiation of stalk cells by activating stalk-specific genes and inhibiting spore-specific genes.

Bonner, J. T. 1957. Fruiting in Dictyostelium. Precision Film Labs. This is an 11-minute film by John Tyler Bonner. It is superb, and you should find it tucked away in a film rental library at many Universities.

Bonner, J. T. 1959. Differentiation in social amoebae. Sci. Am. 201(6): 152–162. Though old, this beautifully illustrated article is far from outdated. It is a wonderful source of ideas for simple but elegant experiments that could easily be done for this laboratory.

Bonner, J. T. 1983. Chemical signals of social amoebae. Sci. Am., 248 (4): 114–120. A very readable account of sorting out behavior among two species of slime molds.

Bonner, J. T. 1991. Researches on Cellular Slime Molds: Selected Papers of J. T. Bonner. Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India. Bonner’s work on Dictyostelium discoideum spans five decades and constitutes a major body of information on the organism. His papers are clear and easily understood, with extremely instructive illustrations. The papers are a treasure trove of observations and ideas that will serve students very well as a model for their own reports.

Bonner, J. T. 1998. A way of following individual cells in the migrating slugs of Dictyostelium discoideum. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA 95: 9355–9359. This is yet another example of Bonner’s genius in devising simple ways of getting an organism to reveal details about its biology. Here, Bonner explains how he viewed individual cell migration by creating thin slugs caught between a coverslip and mineral oil on a slide.

Bonner, J. T., D. S. Barkley, E. M. Hall, T. M. Konijn, J. W. Mason, B. O’Keefe III and P. B. Wolfe. 1969. Acrasin, acrasinase, and the sensitivity to acrasin in Dictyostelium discoideum. Dev. Biol. 20: 72–87. Acrasin is the old term for what is now known to be cAMP, secreted by aggregating amoebae; acrasinase is phosphodiesterase. This paper includes a smorgasbord of experiments, including ones using human urine and theophylline. (Urine acts as an attractant during aggregation, and theophylline inhibits or delays aggregation.)

Bonner, J. T., T. A. Davidowski, W.-H. Hsu, D. A. Lapeyrolerie and H. L. B. Suthers. 1982. The role of surface water and light on differentiation in the cellular slime molds. Differentiation 21: 123–126. A paper that beautifully illustrates how, with a minimum of equipment and astute observation, significant discoveries are still to be made.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 1998. A revised six kingdom system of life. Biol. Rev. 73: 203–266. How to classify the cellular slime molds has long been in question. It is now generally agreed that they belong among the protozoa, and Cavalier-Smith has designated the group as the Mycetozoa.

Devreotes, P. 1989. Dictyostelium discoideum: A model system for cell–cell interactions in development. Science 245: 1054–1058. A sophisticated paper that discusses primarily the mechanisms of signal transduction through cAMP.

Gerisch, G. and D. Malchow. 1976. Cyclic AMP receptors and the control of cell aggregation in Dictyostelium. Adv. Cyclic Nucleotide Res. 7: 49–68. Published at a time when cAMP was an extremely hot research topic, this paper summarizes much of the work on cAMP in Dictyostelium and provides a wealth of ideas for laboratory studies.

Gomer, R. H. and R. A. Firtel. 1987. Cell-autonomous determination of cell-type choice in Dictyostelium development by cell-cycle phase. Science 237: 758–762. Gomer and Firtel put forward the theory that the determination of amoebae to prestalk or prespore is controlled by their position in the cell cycle at the onset of starvation.

Gross, J. D. 1994. Developmental decisions in Dictyostelium discoideum. Microbiological Reviews 58: 330–351. This is a superb summary of much of what we know about the biology and biochemistry of Dictyostelium.

Hall, A. L., J. Franke, M. Faure and R. H. Kessin. 1993. The role of the cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase of Dictyostelium discoideum during growth, aggregation, and morphogenesis: Overexpression and localization studies with the separate promoters of the pde. Dev. Biol. 157: 73–84. The complex story of phosphodiesterase in Dictyostelium has been unraveled with exquisite finesse by Richard Kessin and his colleagues. This paper summarizes much of that work and demonstrates the delicate precision with which genetics can be studied in this organism.

Kay, R. R. and R. H. Insall, 1994. Dictyostelium discoideum. In Embryos, Color Atlas of Development. J. B. L. Bard (ed.). Wolfe Publ., London, pp. 23–35. A clear review of the life cycle of Dictyostelium with exquisite photographs.

Kessin, R. H. and M. M. Van Lookeren Campagne. 1992. The development of a social amoeba. Am. Sci. 80(6): 556–565. If you read no other papers on Dictyostelium, read this one. It is a delightfully written, beautifully illustrated article on the general biology, biochemistry, and genetics of Dictyostelium discoideum.

Parent, C. A. and P. N. Devreotes. 1996. Molecular genetics of signal transduction in Dictyostelium. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 65: 411–440. A clarifying review of the complex of transduction pathways that are part of Dictyostelium’s biology.

Powell-Coffman, J. A. and R. A. Firtel. 1993. Cellular dedifferentiation and spore germination in Dictyostelium may utilize similar regulatory pathways. BioEssays 15: 131–133. This short review discusses the mechanisms of dedifferentiation—how a pseudoplasmodium can be caused to revert back to the stage of feeding amoebae.

Raper, K. B. 1935. Dictyostelium discoideum, a new species of slime mold from decaying forest leaves. J. Agric. Res. 50: 135–147. This is the report of the discovery of Dictyostelium by Kenneth Raper, then a graduate student, who isolated the organism from soil samples taken on a camping trip while in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.

Riley, B. B. and S. L. Barclay. 1990. Ammonia promotes accumulation of intracellular cAMP in differentiating amoebae of Dictyostelium discoideum. Development 109: 715–722. The paper describes experiments in which ammonia and high pH were used to promote spore and inhibit stalk formation. The ammonia caused an increase in intracellular cAMP by preventing its secretion. Extracellular cAMP levels were thereby lowered.

Riley, B. B. and S. L. Barclay. 1990. Conditions that alter intracellular cAMP levels affect expression of cAMP phosphodiesterase gene in Dictyostelium. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87: 4746–4750. This paper discusses the effects of caffeine on Dictyostelium, showing that the resulting increase in phosphodiesterase activity leads to increased stalk and decreased spore differentiation.

Shaulsky, G., D. Fuller and W. F. Loomis. 1998. A cAMP-phosphodiesterase controls PKA-dependent differentiation. Development 125: 691–699. An important paper on the control points of transduction pathways involving cAMP in Dictyostelium.