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Cooperation and conflict in the life cycle 
Picture courtesy: Sathiyanarayanan Manivannan. Cellular slime molds are soil-dwelling eukaryotic, microorganisms and their life cycle has sharp contrasts - with unicellular growth followed by multicellular development. As amoeboid cells, they feed on bacteria, proliferate in large numbers and on starvation, many hundreds to thousands of amoebae signal each other, aggregate by chemotaxis and form a 'slug' (see the figure). Cells at the slug anterior, differentiate to a dead stalk while the rest of the cells encapsulate as spores in a fruiting body and in favorable circumstances, the spores disperse establishing a new territory. As the identity of the cell is retained throughout the life cycle, they are called ‘cellular’ slime molds. As a group cellular slime molds are also called as ‘Dictyostelids’ or ‘Social amoebae’ as they come together at times of crisis with a marked division of labor in the group of cells. Among slime molds, Dictyostelium discoideum is widely used as model organism. For more details, visit www.dictybase.org |