What the papers say: Cellular dedifferentiation and spore germination in Dictyostelium may utilize similar regulatory pathways
✍ Scribed by Jo Anne Powell-Coffman; Richard A. Firtel
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 363 KB
- Volume
- 15
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0265-9247
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Cellular dedifferentiation is an important developmental response to perturbations in morphogenesis. In the cellular slime mold Dictyosteliurn discoideurn this process gives cells the flexibility, when multicellular development is disrupted, to respond to nutrients and reinitiate vegetative growth. Recent studies in D. discoideurn described by Soll and colleagues"' show that genes previously thought to be expressed only during spore germination are also expressed during induced dedifferentiation, suggesting that similar molecular mechanisms are involved in these two developmental processes. It should now be possible to determine whether the developmental programs that control dedifferentiation during spore germination also control conversion of cell types in the multicellular organism.