Dictyostelium discoideum
From DrugPedia: A Wikipedia for Drug discovery
Dictyostelium discoideum
It is a species of soil-living amoeba belonging to the phylum Mycetozoa. D. discoideum, commonly referred to as slime mold, is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its life time. D. discoideum has a unique asexual lifecycle that consists of four stages: vegetative, aggregation, migration, and culmination.
| Division | Eukarya |
|---|---|
| Kingdom | Amoebozoa |
| Phylum | Mycetozoa |
| Class | Dictyostelia |
| Order | Dictyosteliida |
| Family | Dictyosteliidae |
| Genus | Dictyostelium |
| Species | D. discoideum |
| Binomial | Dictyostelium discoideum |
[edit] Pathogenic Activity
These slime molds are used to test anti-cancer drugs, immune-cell diseases, and bacterial intracellular pathogenesis. Also, recently it was established that Dictyostelium use DNA methylation for regulating gene expression.
Individual cell behavior accounts for many phases of health and disease. This is portrayed in D. discoideum in many different ways. Cytokinesis acts as part of immune response, tissue maintenance, and cancer, in the form of cell proliferation. Chemotaxis deals with inflammation, arthritis, asthma, lymphocyte trafficking, and axon guidance. Phagocytosis is used in immune surveillance and antigen presentation, while cell-type determination, cell sorting, and pattern formation are basic features of embryogenesis.
Legionella is a genus of bacteria that includes species that can cause Legionnaire's disease in humans. D. discoideum is also a host for Legionella and is a suitable model for studying the infection process. Specifically, D. discoideum shares with mammalian host cells a similar cytoskeleton and cellular processes relevant to Legionella infection, including phagocytosis, membrane trafficking, endocytosis, vesicle sorting, and chemotaxis.
