The Journal of Cell Biology, Vol 96, 1559-1565, Copyright © 1983 by The Rockefeller University Press

ARTICLES

Sensory adaptation of Dictyostelium discoideum cells to chemotactic signals

PJ Van Haastert

Postvegetative Dictyostelium discoideum cells react chemotactically to gradients of cAMP, folic acid, and pterin. In the presence of a constant concentration of 10(-5) M cAMP cells move at random. They still are able to respond to superimposed gradients of cAMP, although the response is less efficient than without the high background level of cAMP. Cells which are accommodated to 10(-5) M cAMP do not react to a gradient of cAMP if the mean cAMP concentration is decreasing with time. This indicates the involvement of adaptation in the detection of chemotactic gradients: cells adapt to the mean concentration of chemoattractant and respond to positive deviations from the mean concentration. Cells adapted to high cAMP concentrations react normally to gradients of folic acid or pterin. Adaptation to one of these compounds does not affect the response to the other attractants. This suggests that cAMP, folic acid, and pterin are detected by different receptors, and that adaptation is localized at a step in the transduction process before the signals from these receptors coincide into one pathway. I discuss the implications of adaptation for chemotaxis and cell aggregation.
CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Comer, F. I., Parent, C. A. (2006). Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase Activity Controls the Chemoattractant-mediated Activation and Adaptation of Adenylyl Cyclase. Mol. Biol. Cell 17: 357-366 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Wessels, D. J., Zhang, H., Reynolds, J., Daniels, K., Heid, P., Lu, S., Kuspa, A., Shaulsky, G., Loomis, W. F., Soll, D. R. (2000). The Internal Phosphodiesterase RegA Is Essential for the Suppression of Lateral Pseudopods during Dictyostelium Chemotaxis. Mol. Biol. Cell 11: 2803-2820 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Tani, T, Naitoh, Y (1999). Chemotactic responses of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae to a cyclic AMP concentration gradient: evidence to support a spatial mechanism for sensing cyclic AMP. J. Exp. Biol. 202: 1-12 [Abstract]  
• Kim, J.-Y., Soede, R. D. M., Schaap, P., Valkema, R., Borleis, J. A., Van Haastert, P. J. M., Devreotes, P. N., Hereld, D. (1997). Phosphorylation of Chemoattractant Receptors Is Not Essential for Chemotaxis or Termination of G-protein-mediated Responses. J. Biol. Chem. 272: 27313-27318 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Vicker, M. (1994). The regulation of chemotaxis and chemokinesis in Dictyostelium amoebae by temporal signals and spatial gradients of cyclic AMP. J. Cell Sci. 107: 659-667 [Abstract]  
• Bominaar, A., Van Haastert, P. (1993). Chemotactic antagonists of cAMP inhibit Dictyostelium phospholipase C. J. Cell Sci. 104: 181-185 [Abstract]  
• Klein, P., Fontana, D., Knox, B., Theibert, A., Devreotes, P. (1985). cAMP Receptors Controlling Cell-Cell Interactions in the Development of Dictyostelium. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 50: 787-799 [Abstract]  

Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents