Dictyostelium morphogenesis

Cell-to-cell signaling in cell populations with large cell size variability

Sizes of multiple cells vary when they communicate with each other. Differences in cell size result in variations in the cell surface area and volume, as well as the number of enzymes and receptors involved in signal transduction. Although heterogeneity in cell size may inhibit uniformity in signaling, cell-to-cell signaling is still possible. The outcome when cell size changes to an extreme degree remains unclear. Hence, we inhibited cell division in Dictyostelium cells, a model organism for signal transduction, to gain insights into the consequences of extreme cell size variations. Measurements of cell signals in this population using fluorescence microscopy indicated that the giant cells can communicate with normal-sized cells by suppressing the signal level. Simulations of signal transduction based on the FitzHugh-Nagumo model also suggested similar results. Our findings suggest that signaling mechanism homogenizes cell-to-cell signaling in response to cell size.

Ion Signaling in Cell Motility and Development in Dictyostelium discoideum

Cell-to-cell communication is fundamental to the organization and functionality of multicellular organisms. Intercellular signals orchestrate a variety of cellular responses, including gene expression and protein function changes, and contribute to the integrated functions of individual tissues. Dictyostelium discoideum is a model organism for cell-to-cell interactions mediated by chemical signals and multicellular formation mechanisms. Upon starvation, D. discoideum cells exhibit coordinated cell aggregation via cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP) gradients and chemotaxis, which facilitates the unicellular-to-multicellular transition. During this process, the calcium signaling synchronizes with the cAMP signaling. The resulting multicellular body exhibits organized collective migration and ultimately forms a fruiting body. Various signaling molecules, such as ion signals, regulate the spatiotemporal differentiation patterns within multicellular bodies. Understanding cell-to-cell and ion signaling in Dictyostelium provides insight into general multicellular formation and differentiation processes. Exploring cell-to-cell and ion signaling enhances our understanding of the fundamental biological processes related to cell communication, coordination, and differentiation, with wide-ranging implications for developmental biology, evolutionary biology, biomedical research, and synthetic biology. In this review, I discuss the role of ion signaling in cell motility and development in D. discoideum.

Perspectives on Principles of Cellular Behavior from the Biophysics of Protists

Cells are the fundamental unit of biological organization. Although it may be easy to think of them as little more than the simple building blocks of complex organisms such as animals, single cells are capable of behaviors of remarkable apparent sophistication. This is abundantly clear when considering the diversity of form and function among the microbial eukaryotes, the protists. How might we navigate this diversity in the search for general principles of cellular behavior? Here, we review cases in which the intensive study of protists from the perspective of cellular biophysics has driven insight into broad biological questions of morphogenesis, navigation and motility, and decision making. We argue that applying such approaches to questions of evolutionary cell biology presents rich, emerging opportunities. Integrating and expanding biophysical studies across protist diversity, exploiting the unique characteristics of each organism, will enrich our understanding of general underlying principles.

Visualization of c-di-GMP in multicellular Dictyostelium stages

The bacterial signaling molecule cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) is only synthesized and utilized by the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum among eukaryotes. Dictyostelium cells undergo a transition from a unicellular to a multicellular state, ultimately forming a stalk and spores. While Dictyostelium is known to employ c-di-GMP to induce differentiation into stalk cells, there have been no reports of direct observation of c-di-GMP using fluorescent probes. In this study, we used a fluorescent probe used in bacteria to visualize its localization within Dictyostelium multicellular bodies. Cytosolic c-di-GMP concentrations were significantly higher at the tip of the multicellular body during stalk formation.

Controlling periodic long-range signalling to drive a morphogenetic transition

Cells use signal relay to transmit information across tissue scales. However, the production of information carried by signal relay remains poorly characterised. To determine how the coding features of signal relay are generated, we used the classic system for long-range signalling: the periodic cAMP waves that drive Dictyostelium collective migration. Combining imaging and optogenetic perturbation of cell signalling states, we find that migration is triggered by an increase in wave frequency generated at the signalling centre. Wave frequency is regulated by cAMP wave circulation, which organises the long-range signal. To determine the mechanisms modulating wave circulation, we combined mathematical modelling, the general theory of excitable media, and mechanical perturbations to test competing models. Models in which cell density and spatial patterning modulate the wave frequency cannot explain the temporal evolution of signalling waves. Instead, our evidence leads to a model where wave circulation increases the ability for cells to relay the signal, causing further increase in the circulation rate. This positive feedback between cell state and signalling pattern regulates the long-range signal coding that drives morphogenesis.

Meander pattern of spiral wave and the spatial distribution of its cycle length

One of the most interesting dynamics of rotating spiral waves in an excitable medium is meandering. The tip of a meandering spiral wave moves along a complex trajectory, which often takes the shape of an epitrochoid or hypotrochoid with inward or outward petals. The cycle lengths (CLs) of a meandering spiral wave are not constant; rather, they depend on the meandering dynamics. In this paper, we show that the CLs take two mean values, outside T^{out} and inside T^{in} the meandering trajectory with a ratio of T^{in}/T^{out}=(n+1)/n for the inward and (n-1)/n for the outward petals, where n is the number of petals in the tip trajectory. We illustrate this using four models of excitable media and prove this result. These formulas are shown to be suitable for a meandering spiral wave in an anatomical model of the heart. We also show that the effective periods of overdrive pacing of meandering spiral waves depend on the electrode location relative to the tip trajectory. Overall, our approach can be used to study the meandering pattern from the CL data; it should work for any type of dynamics that produces complex tip trajectories of the spiral wave, for example, for a drift due to heterogeneity.

ATP levels influence cell movement during the mound phase in Dictyostelium discoideum as revealed by ATP visualization and simulation

Cell migration plays an important role in multicellular organism development. The cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum is a useful model organism for the study of cell migration during development. Although cellular ATP levels are known to determine cell fate during development, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Here, we report that ATP-rich cells efficiently move to the central tip region of the mound against rotational movement during the mound phase. A simulation analysis based on an agent-based model reproduces the movement of ATP-rich cells observed in the experiments. These findings indicate that ATP-rich cells have the ability to move against the bulk flow of cells, suggesting a mechanism by which high ATP levels determine the cell fate of differentiation.

Moving the Research Forward: The Best of British Biology Using the Tractable Model System Dictyostelium discoideum

The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum provides an excellent model for research across a broad range of disciplines within biology. The organism diverged from the plant, yeast, fungi and animal kingdoms around 1 billion years ago but retains common aspects found in these kingdoms. Dictyostelium has a low level of genetic complexity and provides a range of molecular, cellular, biochemical and developmental biology experimental techniques, enabling multidisciplinary studies to be carried out in a wide range of areas, leading to research breakthroughs. Numerous laboratories within the United Kingdom employ Dictyostelium as their core research model. This review introduces Dictyostelium and then highlights research from several leading British research laboratories, covering their distinct areas of research, the benefits of using the model, and the breakthroughs that have arisen due to the use of Dictyostelium as a tractable model system.

Using Dictyostelium to Advance Our Understanding of the Role of Medium Chain Fatty Acids in Health and Disease

Ketogenic diets have been utilized for many years to improve health, and as a dietary approach for the treatment of a range of diseases, where the mechanism of these low carbohydrate and high fat diets is widely considered to be through the production of metabolic products of fat breakdown, called ketones. One of these diets, the medium chain triglyceride ketogenic diet, involves high fat dietary intake in the form of medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs), decanoic and octanoic acid, and is commonly used in endurance and high intensity exercises but has also demonstrated beneficial effects in the treatment of numerous pathologies including drug resistant epilepsy, cancer, and diabetes. Recent advances, using Dictyostelium discoideum as a model, have controversially proposed several direct molecular mechanisms for decanoic acid in this diet, independent of ketone generation. Studies in this model have identified that decanoic acid reduces phosphoinositide turnover, diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) activity, and also inhibits the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1). These discoveries could potentially impact the treatment of a range of disorders including epilepsy, cancer and bipolar disorder. In this review, we summarize the newly proposed mechanisms for decanoic acid, identified using D. discoideum, and highlight potential roles in health and disease treatment.

MAPK docking motif in the Dictyostelium Gα2 subunit is required for aggregation and transcription factor translocation

Some G protein alpha subunits contain a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) docking motif (D-motif) near the amino terminus that can impact cellular responses to external signals. The Dictyostelium Gα2 G protein subunit is required for chemotaxis to cAMP during the onset of multicellular development and this subunit contains a putative D-motif near the amino terminus. The Gα2 subunit D-motif was altered to examine its potential role in chemotaxis and multicellular development. In gα2^- cells the expression of the D-motif mutant (Gα2^D-) or wild-type subunit from high copy number vectors rescued cell aggregation but blocked the transition of mounds into slugs. This phenotype was also observed in parental strains with a wild-type gα2 locus indicating that the heterologous Gα2 subunit expression interferes with multicellular morphogenesis. Expression of the Gα2^D- subunit from a low copy number vectors in gα2^- cells did not rescue aggregation whereas the wild-type Gα2 subunit rescued aggregation efficiently and allowed wild-type morphological development. The Gα2^D- and Gα2 subunit were both capable of restoring comparable levels of cAMP stimulated motility and the ability to co-aggregate with wild-type cells implying that the aggregation defect of Gα2^D- expressing cells is due to insufficient intercellular signaling. Expression of the Gα2 subunit but not the Gα2^D- subunit fully restored the ability of cAMP to stimulate the translocation of the GtaC transcription factor suggesting the D-motif is important for transcription factor regulation. These results suggest that the D-motif of Gα2 plays a role in aggregation and other developmental responses involved with cAMP signaling.

Regulation of the Actin Cytoskeleton via Rho GTPase Signalling in Dictyostelium and Mammalian Cells: A Parallel Slalom

Both Dictyostelium amoebae and mammalian cells are endowed with an elaborate actin cytoskeleton that enables them to perform a multitude of tasks essential for survival. Although these organisms diverged more than a billion years ago, their cells share the capability of chemotactic migration, large-scale endocytosis, binary division effected by actomyosin contraction, and various types of adhesions to other cells and to the extracellular environment. The composition and dynamics of the transient actin-based structures that are engaged in these processes are also astonishingly similar in these evolutionary distant organisms. The question arises whether this remarkable resemblance in the cellular motility hardware is accompanied by a similar correspondence in matching software, the signalling networks that govern the assembly of the actin cytoskeleton. Small GTPases from the Rho family play pivotal roles in the control of the actin cytoskeleton dynamics. Indicatively, Dictyostelium matches mammals in the number of these proteins. We give an overview of the Rho signalling pathways that regulate the actin dynamics in Dictyostelium and compare them with similar signalling networks in mammals. We also provide a phylogeny of Rho GTPases in Amoebozoa, which shows a variability of the Rho inventories across different clades found also in Metazoa.

Evolution of Reproductive Division of Labor - Lessons Learned From the Social Amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum During Its Multicellular Development

The origin of multicellular life from unicellular beings is an epochal step in the evolution of eukaryotes. There are several factors influencing cell fate choices during differentiation and morphogenesis of an organism. Genetic make-up of two cells that unite and fertilize is the key factor to signal the formation of various cell-types in due course of development. Although ploidy of the cell-types determines the genetics of an individual, the role of ploidy in cell fate decisions remains unclear. Dictyostelium serves as a versatile model to study the emergence of multicellular life from unicellular life forms. In this work, we investigate the role played by ploidy status of a cell on cell fate commitments during Dictyostelium development. To answer this question, we created Dictyostelium cells of different ploidy: haploid parents and derived isogenic diploids, allowing them to undergo development. The diploid strains used in this study were generated using parasexual genetics. The ploidy status of the haploids and diploids were confirmed by microscopy, flow cytometry, and karyotyping. Prior to reconstitution, we labeled the cells by two methods. First, intragenic expression of red fluorescent protein (RFP) and second, staining the amoebae with a vital, fluorescent dye carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE). RFP labeled haploid cells allowed us to track the haploids in the chimeric aggregates, slugs, and fruiting bodies. The CFSE labeling method allowed us to track both the haploids and the diploids in the chimeric developmental structures. Our findings illustrate that the haploids demonstrate sturdy cell fate commitment starting from the aggregation stage. The haploids remain crowded at the aggregation centers of the haploid-diploid chimeric aggregates. At the slug stage haploids are predominantly occupying the slug posterior, and are visible in the spore population in the fruiting bodies. Our findings show that cell fate decisions during D. discoideum development are highly influenced by the ploidy status of a cell, adding a new aspect to already known factors Here, we report that ploidy status of a cell could also play a crucial role in regulating the cell fate commitments.

Lipopeptide-mediated bacterial interaction enables cooperative predator defense

Bacteria are inherently social organisms whose actions should ideally be studied within an interactive ecological context. We show that the exchange and modification of natural products enables two unrelated bacteria to defend themselves against a common predator. Amoebal predation is a major cause of death in soil bacteria and thus it exerts a strong selective pressure to evolve defensive strategies. A systematic analysis of binary combinations of coisolated bacteria revealed strains that were individually susceptible to predation but together killed their predator. This cooperative defense relies on a Pseudomonas species producing syringafactin, a lipopeptide, which induces the production of peptidases in a Paenibacillus strain. These peptidases then degrade the innocuous syringafactin into compounds, which kill the predator. A combination of bioprospecting, coculture experiments, genome modification, and transcriptomics unravel this novel natural product-based defense strategy.

First-order agent-based models of emergent behaviour of Dictyostelium discoideum and their inspiration for swarm robotics

Collective behaviour in nature provides a source of inspiration to engineer artificial collective adaptive systems, due to their mechanisms favouring adaptation to environmental changes and enabling complex emergent behaviour to arise from a relatively simple behaviour of individual entities. As part of our ongoing research, we study the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum to derive agent-based models and mechanisms that we can then exploit in artificial systems, in particular in swarm robotics. In this paper, we present a selection of agent-based models of the aggregation phase of D. discoideum, their corresponding biological illustrations and how we used them as an inspiration for transposing this behaviour into swarms of Kilobots. We focus on the stream-breaking phenomenon occurring during the aggregation phase of the life cycle of D. discoideum. Results show that the breakup of aggregation streams depends on cell density, motility, motive force and the concentration of cAMP and CF. The breakup also comes with the appearance of late centres. Our computational results show similar behaviour to our biological experiments, using Ax2(ka) strain. For swarm robotics experiments, we focus on signalling and aggregation towards a centre.

Proteomic and Transcriptomic Profiling Identifies Early Developmentally Regulated Proteins in Dictyostelium Discoideum

Cyclic AMP acts as a secondary messenger involving different cellular functions in eukaryotes. Here, proteomic and transcriptomic profiling has been combined to identify novel early developmentally regulated proteins in eukaryote cells. These proteomic and transcriptomic experiments were performed in Dictyostelium discoideum given the unique advantages that this organism offers as a eukaryotic model for cell motility and as a nonmammalian model of human disease. By comparing whole-cell proteome analysis of developed (cAMP-pulsed) wild-type AX2 cells and an independent transcriptomic analysis of developed wild-type AX4 cells, our results show that up to 70% of the identified proteins overlap in the two independent studies. Among them, we have found 26 proteins previously related to cAMP signaling and identified 110 novel proteins involved in calcium signaling, adhesion, actin cytoskeleton, the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, metabolism, and proteins that previously lacked any annotation. Our study validates previous findings, mostly for the canonical cAMP-pathway, and also generates further insight into the complexity of the transcriptomic changes during early development. This article also compares proteomic data between parental and cells lacking glkA, a GSK-3 kinase implicated in substrate adhesion and chemotaxis in Dictyostelium. This analysis reveals a set of proteins that show differences in expression in the two strains as well as overlapping protein level changes independent of GlkA.

A telomerase with novel non-canonical roles: TERT controls cellular aggregation and tissue size in Dictyostelium

Telomerase, particularly its main subunit, the reverse transcriptase, TERT, prevents DNA erosion during eukaryotic chromosomal replication, but also has poorly understood non-canonical functions. Here, in the model social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, we show that the protein encoded by tert has telomerase-like motifs, and regulates, non-canonically, important developmental processes. Expression levels of wild-type (WT) tert were biphasic, peaking at 8 and 12 h post-starvation, aligning with developmental events, such as the initiation of streaming (~7 h) and mound formation (~10 h). In tert KO mutants, however, aggregation was delayed until 16 h. Large, irregular streams formed, then broke up, forming small mounds. The mound-size defect was not induced when a KO mutant of countin (a master size-regulating gene) was treated with TERT inhibitors, but anti-countin antibodies did rescue size in the tert KO. Although, conditioned medium (CM) from countin mutants failed to rescue size in the tert KO, tert KO CM rescued the countin KO phenotype. These and additional observations indicate that TERT acts upstream of smlA/countin: (i) the observed expression levels of smlA and countin, being respectively lower and higher (than WT) in the tert KO; (ii) the levels of known size-regulation intermediates, glucose (low) and adenosine (high), in the tert mutant, and the size defect's rescue by supplemented glucose or the adenosine-antagonist, caffeine; (iii) the induction of the size defect in the WT by tert KO CM and TERT inhibitors. The tert KO's other defects (delayed aggregation, irregular streaming) were associated with changes to cAMP-regulated processes (e.g. chemotaxis, cAMP pulsing) and their regulatory factors (e.g. cAMP; acaA, carA expression). Overexpression of WT tert in the tert KO rescued these defects (and size), and restored a single cAMP signaling centre. Our results indicate that TERT acts in novel, non-canonical and upstream ways, regulating key developmental events in Dictyostelium.

Spontaneous spatiotemporal ordering of shape oscillations enhances cell migration

The migration of cells is relevant for processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and invasion of cancer cells. In order to move, single cells deform cyclically. However, it is not understood how these shape oscillations influence collective properties. Here we demonstrate, using numerical simulations, that the interplay of directed motion, shape oscillations, and excluded volume enables cells to locally "synchronize" their motion and thus enhance collective migration. Our model captures elongation and contraction of crawling ameboid cells controlled by an internal clock with a fixed period, mimicking the internal cycle of biological cells. We show that shape oscillations are crucial for local rearrangements that induce ordering of neighboring cells according to their internal clocks even in the absence of signaling and regularization. Our findings reveal a novel, purely physical mechanism through which the internal dynamics of cells influences their collective behavior, which is distinct from well known mechanisms like chemotaxis, cell division, and cell-cell adhesion.

Pulling in models of cell migration

There are numerous biological scenarios in which populations of cells migrate in crowded environments. Typical examples include wound healing, cancer growth, and embryo development. In these crowded environments cells are able to interact with each other in a variety of ways. These include excluded-volume interactions, adhesion, repulsion, cell signaling, pushing, and pulling. One popular way to understand the behavior of a group of interacting cells is through an agent-based mathematical model. A typical aim of modellers using such representations is to elucidate how the microscopic interactions at the cell-level impact on the macroscopic behavior of the population. At the very least, such models typically incorporate volume-exclusion. The more complex cell-cell interactions listed above have also been incorporated into such models; all apart from cell-cell pulling. In this paper we consider this under-represented cell-cell interaction, in which an active cell is able to "pull" a nearby neighbor as it moves. We incorporate a variety of potential cell-cell pulling mechanisms into on- and off-lattice agent-based volume exclusion models of cell movement. For each of these agent-based models we derive a continuum partial differential equation which describes the evolution of the cells at a population level. We study the agreement between the agent-based models and the continuum, population-based models and compare and contrast a range of agent-based models (accounting for the different pulling mechanisms) with each other. We find generally good agreement between the agent-based models and the corresponding continuum models that worsens as the agent-based models become more complex. Interestingly, we observe that the partial differential equations that we derive differ significantly, depending on whether they were derived from on- or off-lattice agent-based models of pulling. This hints that it is important to employ the appropriate agent-based model when representing pulling cell-cell interactions.

The fate of cells undergoing spontaneous DNA damage during development

Embryonic development involves extensive and often rapid cell proliferation. An unavoidable side effect of cell proliferation is DNA damage. The consequences of spontaneous DNA damage during development are not clear. Here, we define an approach to determine the effects of DNA damage on cell fate choice. Using single cell transcriptomics, we identified a subpopulation of Dictyostelium cells experiencing spontaneous DNA damage. Damaged cells displayed high expression of rad51, with the gene induced by multiple types of genotoxic stress. Using live imaging, we tracked high Rad51 cells from differentiation onset until cell fate assignment. High Rad51 cells were shed from multicellular structures, excluding damaged cells from the spore population. Cell shedding resulted from impaired cell motility and defective cell-cell adhesion, with damaged cells additionally defective in activation of spore gene expression. These data indicate DNA damage is not insulated from other aspects of cell physiology during development and multiple features of damaged cells prevent propagation of genetic error. Our approach is generally applicable for monitoring rare subpopulations during development, and permits analysis of developmental perturbations occurring within a physiological dynamic range.

Oscillatory cAMP cell-cell signalling persists during multicellular Dictyostelium development

Propagating waves of cAMP, periodically initiated in the aggregation centre, are known to guide the chemotactic aggregation of hundreds of thousands of starving individual Dictyostelium discoideum cells into multicellular aggregates. Propagating optical density waves, reflecting cell periodic movement, have previously been shown to exist in streaming aggregates, mounds and migrating slugs. Using a highly sensitive cAMP-FRET reporter, we have now been able to measure periodically propagating cAMP waves directly in these multicellular structures. In slugs cAMP waves are periodically initiated in the tip and propagate backward through the prespore zone. Altered cAMP signalling dynamics in mutants with developmental defects strongly support a key functional role for cAMP waves in multicellular Dictyostelium morphogenesis. These findings thus show that propagating cAMP not only control the initial aggregation process but continue to be the long range cell-cell communication mechanism guiding cell movement during multicellular Dictyostelium morphogenesis at the mound and slugs stages.

Two potential evolutionary origins of the fruiting bodies of the dictyostelid slime moulds

Dictyostelium discoideum and the other dictyostelid slime moulds ('social amoebae') are popular model organisms best known for their demonstration of sorocarpic development. In this process, many cells aggregate to form a multicellular unit that ultimately becomes a fruiting body bearing asexual spores. Several other unrelated microorganisms undergo comparable processes, and in some it is evident that their multicellular development evolved from the differentiation process of encystation. While it has been argued that the dictyostelid fruiting body had similar origins, it has also been proposed that dictyostelid sorocarpy evolved from the unicellular fruiting process found in other amoebozoan slime moulds. This paper reviews the developmental biology of the dictyostelids and other relevant organisms and reassesses the two hypotheses on the evolutionary origins of dictyostelid development. Recent advances in phylogeny, genetics, and genomics and transcriptomics indicate that further research is necessary to determine whether or not the fruiting bodies of the dictyostelids and their closest relatives, the myxomycetes and protosporangids, are homologous.

Quantifying emergence and self-organisation of Enterobacter cloacae microbial communities

From microbial communities to cancer cells, many such complex collectives embody emergent and self-organising behaviour. Such behaviour drives cells to develop composite features such as formation of aggregates or expression of specific genes as a result of cell-cell interactions within a cell population. Currently, we lack universal mathematical tools for analysing the collective behaviour of biological swarms. To address this, we propose a multifractal inspired framework to measure the degree of emergence and self-organisation from scarce spatial (geometric) data and apply it to investigate the evolution of the spatial arrangement of Enterobacter cloacae aggregates. In a plate of semi-solid media, Enterobacter cloacae form a spatially extended pattern of high cell density aggregates. These aggregates nucleate from the site of inoculation and radiate outward to fill the entire plate. Multifractal analysis was used to characterise these patterns and calculate dynamics changes in emergence and self-organisation within the bacterial population. In particular, experimental results suggest that the new aggregates align their location with respect to the old ones leading to a decrease in emergence and increase in self-organisation.

Collective behaviour and swarm intelligence in slime moulds

The study of collective behaviour aims to understand how individual-level behaviours can lead to complex group-level patterns. Collective behaviour has primarily been studied in animal groups such as colonies of insects, flocks of birds and schools of fish. Although less studied, collective behaviour also occurs in microorganisms. Here, we argue that slime moulds are powerful model systems for solving several outstanding questions in collective behaviour. In particular, slime mould may hold the key to linking individual-level mechanisms to colony-level behaviours. Using well-established principles of collective animal behaviour as a framework, we discuss the extent to which slime mould collectives are comparable to animal groups, and we highlight some potentially fruitful areas for future research.

Mechanism for Mechanical Wave Break in the Heart Muscle

Using a reaction-diffusion-mechanics model we identify a mechanism for mechanical wave break in the heart muscle. For a wide range of strengths and durations an external mechanical load causes wave front dissipation leading to formation and breakup of spiral waves. We explain the mechanism, and discuss under which conditions it can cause or abolish cardiac arrhythmias.

Collective cell migration has distinct directionality and speed dynamics

When a constraint is removed, confluent cells migrate directionally into the available space. How the migration directionality and speed increase are initiated at the leading edge and propagate into neighboring cells are not well understood. Using a quantitative visualization technique-Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)-we revealed that migration directionality and speed had strikingly different dynamics. Migration directionality increases as a wave propagating from the leading edge into the cell sheet, while the increase in cell migration speed is maintained only at the leading edge. The overall directionality steadily increases with time as cells migrate into the cell-free space, but migration speed remains largely the same. A particle-based compass (PBC) model suggests cellular interplay (which depends on cell-cell distance) and migration speed are sufficient to capture the dynamics of migration directionality revealed experimentally. Extracellular Ca²⁺ regulated both migration speed and directionality, but in a significantly different way, suggested by the correlation between directionality and speed only in some dynamic ranges. Our experimental and modeling results reveal distinct directionality and speed dynamics in collective migration, and these factors can be regulated by extracellular Ca²⁺ through cellular interplay. Quantitative visualization using PIV and our PBC model thus provide a powerful approach to dissect the mechanisms of collective cell migration.

Versatile synthesis of the signaling peptide glorin

We present a versatile synthesis of the eukaryotic signaling peptide glorin as well as glorinamide, a synthetic analog. The ability of these compounds to activate glorin-induced genes in the social amoeba Polysphondylium pallidum was evaluated by quantitative reverse transcription PCR, whereby both compounds showed bioactivity comparable to a glorin standard. This synthetic route will be useful in conducting detailed structure-activity relationship studies as well as in the design of chemical probes to dissect glorin-mediated signaling pathways.

Progress and perspectives in signal transduction, actin dynamics, and movement at the cell and tissue level: lessons from Dictyostelium

Movement of cells and tissues is a basic biological process that is used in development, wound repair, the immune response to bacterial invasion, tumour formation and metastasis, and the search for food and mates. While some cell movement is random, directed movement stimulated by extracellular signals is our focus here. This involves a sequence of steps in which cells first detect extracellular chemical and/or mechanical signals via membrane receptors that activate signal transduction cascades and produce intracellular signals. These intracellular signals control the motile machinery of the cell and thereby determine the spatial localization of the sites of force generation needed to produce directed motion. Understanding how force generation within cells and mechanical interactions with their surroundings, including other cells, are controlled in space and time to produce cell-level movement is a major challenge, and involves many issues that are amenable to mathematical modelling.

Bacterial Alkaloids Prevent Amoebal Predation

Bacterial defense mechanisms have evolved to protect bacteria against predation by nematodes, predatory bacteria, or amoebae. We identified novel bacterial alkaloids (pyreudiones A-D) that protect the producer, Pseudomonas fluorescens HKI0770, against amoebal predation. Isolation, structure elucidation, total synthesis, and a proposed biosynthetic pathway for these structures are presented. The generation of P. fluorescens gene-deletion mutants unable to produce pyreudiones rendered the bacterium edible to a variety of soil-dwelling amoebae.

Directional sensing and streaming in Dictyostelium aggregation

We merge the Kessler-Levine simple discrete model for Dictyostelium cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) production and diffusion with the Dilão-Hauser directional sensing aggregation mechanism. The resulting compound model describes all the known transient patterns that emerge during Dictyostelium aggregation, which include the spontaneous formation of cAMP self-sustained target and spiral waves and streaming. We show that the streaming patterns depend on the speed of the amoebae, on the relaxation time for the production of cAMP, on the cAMP degradation rate, and on directional sensing. Moreover, we show that different signaling centers emerge during Dictyostelium aggregation.

Transient and periodic spatiotemporal structures in a reaction-diffusion-mechanics system

We study transient spatiotemporal structures induced by a weak space-time localized stimulus in an excitable contractile fiber within a two-component globally coupled reaction-diffusion model. The model which we develop allows us to analyze various regimes of excitation spreading and determine origin of the induced structures for various contraction types (defined by the fiber fixation) and global coupling strengths. One of the most notable effects we observed is the after-excitation effect. It leads to emergence of multiple excitation pulses excited by a single external stimulus and can result in long-lasting transient activity and appearance of new oscillatory attractor regimes, including the ones with multiple phase clusters.

Timing by rhythms: Daily clocks and developmental rulers

Biological rhythms are widespread, allowing organisms to temporally organize their behavior and metabolism in advantageous ways. Such proper timing of molecular and cellular events is critical to their development and health. This is best understood in the case of the circadian clock that orchestrates the daily sleep/wake cycle of organisms. Temporal rhythms can also be used for spatial organization, if information from an oscillating system can be recorded within the tissue in a manner that leaves a permanent periodic pattern. One example of this is the "segmentation clock" used by the vertebrate embryo to rhythmically and sequentially subdivide its elongating body axis. The segmentation clock moves with the elongation of the embryo, such that its period sets the segment length as the tissue grows outward. Although the study of this system is still relatively young compared to the circadian clock, outlines of molecular, cellular, and tissue-level regulatory mechanisms of timing have emerged. The question remains, however, is it truly a clock? Here we seek to introduce the segmentation clock to a wider audience of chronobiologists, focusing on the role and control of timing in the system. We compare and contrast the segmentation clock with the circadian clock, and propose that the segmentation clock is actually an oscillatory ruler, with a primary function to measure embryonic space.

Absence of catalytic domain in a putative protein kinase C (PkcA) suppresses tip dominance in Dictyostelium discoideum

A number of organisms possess several isoforms of protein kinase C but little is known about the significance of any specific isoform during embryogenesis and development. To address this we characterized a PKC ortholog (PkcA; DDB_G0288147) in Dictyostelium discoideum. pkcA expression switches from prestalk in mound to prespore in slug, indicating a dynamic expression pattern. Mutants lacking the catalytic domain of PkcA (pkcA(-)) did not exhibit tip dominance. A striking phenotype of pkcA- was the formation of an aggregate with a central hollow, and aggregates later fragmented to form small mounds, each becoming a fruiting body. Optical density wave patterns of cAMP in the late aggregates showed several cAMP wave generation centers. We attribute these defects in pkcA(-) to impaired cAMP signaling, altered cell motility and decreased expression of the cell adhesion molecules - CadA and CsaA. pkcA(-) slugs showed ectopic expression of ecmA in the prespore region. Further, the use of a PKC-specific inhibitor, GF109203X that inhibits the activity of catalytic domain phenocopied pkcA(-).

Genetic control of morphogenesis in Dictyostelium

Cells grow, move, expand, shrink and die in the process of generating the characteristic shapes of organisms. Although the structures generated during development of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum look nothing like the structures seen in metazoan embryogenesis, some of the morphogenetic processes used in their making are surprisingly similar. Recent advances in understanding the molecular basis for directed cell migration, cell type specific sorting, differential adhesion, secretion of matrix components, pattern formation, regulation and terminal differentiation are reviewed. Genes involved in Dictyostelium aggregation, slug formation, and culmination of fruiting bodies are discussed.

Collective dynamics of soft active particles

We present a model of soft active particles that leads to a rich array of collective behavior found also in dense biological swarms of bacteria and other unicellular organisms. Our model uses only local interactions, such as Vicsek-type nearest-neighbor alignment, short-range repulsion, and a local boundary term. Changing the relative strength of these interactions leads to migrating swarms, rotating swarms, and jammed swarms, as well as swarms that exhibit run-and-tumble motion, alternating between migration and either rotating or jammed states. Interestingly, although a migrating swarm moves slower than an individual particle, the diffusion constant can be up to three orders of magnitude larger, suggesting that collective motion can be highly advantageous, for example, when searching for food.

Modelling cell movement, cell differentiation, cell sorting and proportion regulation in Dictyostelium discoideum aggregations

Understanding the mechanisms that control tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis is a central goal not only in developmental biology but also has great relevance for our understanding of various diseases, including cancer. A model organism that is widely used to study the control of tissue morphogenesis and proportioning is the Dictyostelium discoideum. While there are mathematical models describing the role of chemotactic cell motility in the Dictyostelium assembly and morphogenesis of multicellular tissues, as well as models addressing possible mechanisms of proportion regulation, there are no models incorporating both these key aspects of development. In this paper, we introduce a 1D hyperbolic model to investigate the role of two morphogens, DIF and cAMP, on cell movement, cell sorting, cell-type differentiation and proportioning in Dictyostelium discoideum. First, we use the non-spatial version of the model to study cell-type transdifferentiation. We perform a steady-state analysis of it and show that, depending on the shape of the differentiation rate functions, multiple steady-state solutions may occur. Then we incorporate spatial dynamics into the model, and investigate the transdifferentiation and spatial positioning of cells inside the newly formed structures, following the removal of prestalk or prespore regions of a Dictyostelium slug. We show that in isolated prespore fragments, a tipped mound-like aggregate can be formed after a transdifferentiation from prespore to prestalk cells and following the sorting of prestalk cells to the centre of the aggregate. For isolated prestalk fragments, we show the formation of a slug-like structure containing the usual anterior-posterior pattern of prestalk and prespore cells.

Chemotactic signaling in mesenchymal cells compared to amoeboid cells

Cell chemotaxis plays a pivotal role in normal development, inflammatory response, injury repair and tissue regeneration in all organisms. It is also a critical contributor to cancer metastasis, altered angiogenesis and neurite growth in disease. The molecular mechanisms regulating chemotaxis are currently being identified and key components may be pertinent therapeutic targets. Although these components appear to be mostly common in various cells, there are important differences in chemotactic signaling networks and signal processing that result in the distinct chemotactic behavior of mesenchymal cells compared to much better studied amoeboid blood cells. These differences are not necessarily predetermined based on cell type, but are rather chosen and exploited by cells to modify their chemotactic behavior based on physical constraints and/or environmental conditions. This results in a specific type of chemotactic migration in mesenchymal cells that can be selectively targeted in disease. Here, we compare the chemotactic behavior, signaling and motility of mesenchymal and amoeboid cells. We suggest that the current model of chemotaxis is applicable for small amoeboid cells but needs to be reconsidered for large mesenchymal cells. We focus on new candidate regulatory molecules and feedback mechanisms that may account for mesenchymal cell type-specific chemotaxis.

Collective decision-making in microbes

Microbes are intensely social organisms that routinely cooperate and coordinate their activities to express elaborate population level phenotypes. Such coordination requires a process of collective decision-making, in which individuals detect and collate information not only from their physical environment, but also from their social environment, in order to arrive at an appropriately calibrated response. Here, we present a conceptual overview of collective decision-making as it applies to all group-living organisms; we introduce key concepts and principles developed in the context of animal and human group decisions; and we discuss, with appropriate examples, the applicability of each of these concepts in microbial contexts. In particular, we discuss the roles of information pooling, control skew, speed vs. accuracy trade-offs, local feedbacks, quorum thresholds, conflicts of interest, and the reliability of social information. We conclude that collective decision-making in microbes shares many features with collective decision-making in higher taxa, and we call for greater integration between this fledgling field and other allied areas of research, including in the humanities and the physical sciences.

Loss of the histidine kinase DhkD results in mobile mounds during development of Dictyostelium discoideum

Background

Histidine kinases are receptors for sensing cellular and environmental signals, and in response to the appropriate cue they initiate phosphorelays that regulate the activity of response regulators. The Dictyostelium discoideum genome encodes 15 histidine kinases that function to regulate several processes during the multicellular developmental program, including the slug to culmination transition, osmoregulation, and spore differentiation. While there are many histidine kinases, there is only a single response regulator, RegA. Not surprisingly given the ubiquitous involvement of cAMP in numerous processes of development in Dictyostelium, RegA is a cAMP phosphodiesterase that is activated upon receiving phosphates through a phosphorelay. Hence, all of the histidine kinases characterized to date regulate developmental processes through modulating cAMP production. Here we investigate the function of the histidine kinase DhkD.

Principal Findings

The dhkD gene was disrupted, and the resulting cells when developed gave a novel phenotype. Upon aggregation, which occurred without streaming, the mounds were motile, a phenotype termed the pollywog stage. The pollywog phenotype was dependent on a functional RegA. After a period of random migration, the pollywogs attempted to form fingers but mostly generated aberrant structures with no tips. While prestalk and prespore cell differentiation occurred with normal timing, proper patterning did not occur. In contrast, wild type mounds are not motile, and the cAMP chemotactic movement of cells within the mound facilitates proper prestalk and prespore patterning, tip formation, and the vertical elongation of the mound into a finger.

Conclusions

We postulate that DhkD functions to ensure the proper cAMP distribution within mounds that in turn results in patterning, tip formation and the transition of mounds to fingers. In the absence of DhkD, aberrant cell movements in response to an altered cAMP distribution result in mound migration, a lack of proper patterning, and an inability to generate normal finger morphology.

Dictyostelium discoideum SecG interprets cAMP-mediated chemotactic signals to influence actin organization

Tight control of actin cytoskeletal dynamics is essential for proper cell function and survival. Arf nucleotide binding-site opener (ARNO), a mammalian guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Arf, has been implicated in actin cytoskeletal regulation but its exact role is still unknown. To explore the role of ARNO in this regulation as well as in actin-mediated processes, the Dictyostelium discoideum homolog, SecG, was examined. SecG peaks during aggregation and mound formation. The overexpression of SecG arrests development at the mound stage. SecG overexpressing (SecG OE) cells fail to stream during aggregation. Although carA is expressed, SecG OE cells do not chemotax toward cAMP, indicating SecG is involved in the cellular response to cAMP. This chemotactic defect is specific to cAMP-directed chemotaxis, as SecG OE cells chemotax to folate without impairment and exhibit normal cell motility. The chemotactic defects of the SecG mutants may be due to an impaired cAMP response as evidenced by altered cell polarity and F-actin polymerization after cAMP stimulation. Cells overexpressing SecG have increased filopodia compared to wild type cells, implying that excess SecG causes abnormal organization of F-actin. The general function of the cytoskeleton, however, is not disrupted as the SecG OE cells exhibit proper cell-substrate adhesion. Taken together, the results suggest proper SecG levels are needed for appropriate response to cAMP signaling in order to coordinate F-actin organization during development.

Collective behavior of Dictyostelium discoideum monitored by impedance analysis

Dictyostelium discoideum cells respond to periodic signals of extracellular cAMP by collective changes of cell-cell and cell-substrate contacts. This was confirmed by dielectric analysis employing electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) and impedance measurements involving cell-filled micro channels in conjunction with optical microscopy providing a comprehensive picture of chemotaxis under conditions of starvation.

Coordinated elevation of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and autophagy help drive hepatocyte polarization

Cell polarization requires increased cellular energy and metabolic output, but how these energetic demands are met by polarizing cells is unclear. To address these issues, we investigated the roles of mitochondrial bioenergetics and autophagy during cell polarization of hepatocytes cultured in a collagen sandwich system. We found that as the hepatocytes begin to polarize, they use oxidative phosphorylation to raise their ATP levels, and this energy production is required for polarization. After the cells are polarized, the hepatocytes shift to become more dependent on glycolysis to produce ATP. Along with this central reliance on oxidative phosphorylation as the main source of ATP production in polarizing cultures, several other metabolic processes are reprogrammed during the time course of polarization. As the cells polarize, mitochondria elongate and mitochondrial membrane potential increases. In addition, lipid droplet abundance decreases over time. These findings suggest that polarizing cells are reliant on fatty acid oxidation, which is supported by pharmacologic inhibition of β-oxidation by etomoxir. Finally, autophagy is up-regulated during cell polarization, with inhibition of autophagy retarding cell polarization. Taken together, our results describe a metabolic shift involving a number of coordinated metabolic pathways that ultimately serve to increase energy production during cell polarization.

Chemotaxis of Dictyostelium discoideum: collective oscillation of cellular contacts

Chemotactic responses of Dictyostelium discoideum cells to periodic self-generated signals of extracellular cAMP comprise a large number of intricate morphological changes on different length scales. Here, we scrutinized chemotaxis of single Dictyostelium discoideum cells under conditions of starvation using a variety of optical, electrical and acoustic methods. Amebas were seeded on gold electrodes displaying impedance oscillations that were simultaneously analyzed by optical video microscopy to relate synchronous changes in cell density, morphology, and distance from the surface to the transient impedance signal. We found that starved amebas periodically reduce their overall distance from the surface producing a larger impedance and higher total fluorescence intensity in total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. Therefore, we propose that the dominant sources of the observed impedance oscillations observed on electric cell-substrate impedance sensing electrodes are periodic changes of the overall cell-substrate distance of a cell. These synchronous changes of the cell-electrode distance were also observed in the oscillating signal of acoustic resonators covered with amebas. We also found that periodic cell-cell aggregation into transient clusters correlates with changes in the cell-substrate distance and might also contribute to the impedance signal. It turned out that cell-cell contacts as well as cell-substrate contacts form synchronously during chemotaxis of Dictyostelium discoideum cells.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae BEM1 homologue in Neurospora crassa promotes co-ordinated cell behaviour resulting in cell fusion

Directed growth or movement is a common feature of microbial development and propagation. In polar growing filamentous fungi, directed growth requires the interaction of signal sensing machineries with factors controlling polarity and cell tip extension. In Neurospora crassa an unusual mode of cell-cell signalling mediates mutual attraction of germinating spores, which subsequently fuse. During directed growth of the two fusion partners, the cells co-ordinately alternate between two physiological stages, probably associated with signal sending and receiving. Here, we show that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae BEM1 homologue in N. crassa is essential for the robust and efficient functioning of this MAP kinase-based signalling system. BEM1 localizes to growing hyphal tips suggesting a conserved function as a polarity component. In the absence of BEM1, activation of MAK-2, a MAP kinase essential for germling fusion, is strongly reduced and delayed. Germling interactions become highly instable and successful fusion is greatly reduced. In addition, BEM1 is actively recruited around the forming fusion pore, suggesting potential functions after cell-cell contact has been established. By genetically dissecting the contribution of BEM1 to additional various polarization events, we also obtained first hints that BEM1 might function in different protein complexes controlling polarity and growth direction.

α-catenin and IQGAP regulate myosin localization to control epithelial tube morphogenesis in Dictyostelium

Apical actomyosin activity in animal epithelial cells influences tissue morphology and drives morphogenetic movements during development. The molecular mechanisms leading to myosin II accumulation at the apical membrane and its exclusion from other membranes are poorly understood. We show that in the nonmetazoan Dictyostelium discoideum, myosin II localizes apically in tip epithelial cells that surround the stalk, and constriction of this epithelial tube is required for proper morphogenesis. IQGAP1 and its binding partner cortexillin I function downstream of α- and β-catenin to exclude myosin II from the basolateral cortex and promote apical accumulation of myosin II. Deletion of IQGAP1 or cortexillin compromises epithelial morphogenesis without affecting cell polarity. These results reveal that apical localization of myosin II is a conserved morphogenetic mechanism from nonmetazoans to vertebrates and identify a hierarchy of proteins that regulate the polarity and organization of an epithelial tube in a simple model organism.

Emergence of spiral wave activity in a mechanically heterogeneous reaction-diffusion-mechanics system

We perform a numerical study of emergent spiral wave activity in a two-dimensional reaction-diffusion-mechanics medium with a regional inhomogeneity in active and passive mechanical properties. We find that self-sustaining spiral wave activity emerges for a wide range of mechanical parameters of the inhomogeneity via five mechanisms. We classify these mechanisms, relate them to parameters of the inhomogeneity, and discuss how these results can be applied to understand the onset of cardiac arrhythmias due to regional mechanical heterogeneity.

Evolution and diversity of dictyostelid social amoebae

Dictyostelid social amoebae are a large and ancient group of soil microbes with an unusual multicellular stage in their life cycle. Taxonomically, they belong to the eukaryotic supergroup Amoebozoa, the sister group to Opisthokonta (animals + fungi). Roughly half of the ~150 known dictyostelid species were discovered during the last five years and probably many more remain to be found. The traditional classification system of Dictyostelia was completely overturned by cladistic analyses and molecular phylogenies of the past six years. As a result, it now appears that, instead of three major divisions there are eight, none of which correspond to traditional higher-level taxa. In addition to the widely studied Dictyostelium discoideum, there are now efforts to develop model organisms and complete genome sequences for each major group. Thus Dictyostelia is becoming an excellent model for both practical, medically related research and for studying basic principles in cell-cell communication and developmental evolution. In this review we summarize the latest information about their life cycle, taxonomy, evolutionary history, genome projects and practical importance.

New mechanism of spiral wave initiation in a reaction-diffusion-mechanics system

Spiral wave initiation in the heart muscle is a mechanism for the onset of dangerous cardiac arrhythmias. A standard protocol for spiral wave initiation is the application of a stimulus in the refractory tail of a propagating excitation wave, a region that we call the “classical vulnerable zone.” Previous studies of vulnerability to spiral wave initiation did not take the influence of deformation into account, which has been shown to have a substantial effect on the excitation process of cardiomyocytes via the mechano-electrical feedback phenomenon. In this work we study the effect of deformation on the vulnerability of excitable media in a discrete reaction-diffusion-mechanics (dRDM) model. The dRDM model combines FitzHugh-Nagumo type equations for cardiac excitation with a discrete mechanical description of a finite-elastic isotropic material (Seth material) to model cardiac excitation-contraction coupling and stretch activated depolarizing current. We show that deformation alters the “classical,” and forms a new vulnerable zone at longer coupling intervals. This mechanically caused vulnerable zone results in a new mechanism of spiral wave initiation, where unidirectional conduction block and rotation directions of the consequently initiated spiral waves are opposite compared to the mechanism of spiral wave initiation due to the “classical vulnerable zone.” We show that this new mechanism of spiral wave initiation can naturally occur in situations that involve wave fronts with curvature, and discuss its relation to supernormal excitability of cardiac tissue. The concept of mechanically induced vulnerability may lead to a better understanding about the onset of dangerous heart arrhythmias via mechano-electrical feedback.