Social amoeba cast wide, lethal DNA nets to kill invading bacteria

Dictyostelium discoideum begins as a soil-dwelling single cell organism. When stressed, many individual cells coalesce to form first a slug and then a fruiting body consisting of spores balanced atop a dead stalk. Scientists use it as a model organism for studying cellular signals, disease, and the movement of cells in response to a chemical stimulus (chemotaxis).

In studies in the laboratory, researchers from Baylor and the University of Geneva found that sentinel cells in the multi-cellular social amoeba slug use a form of toll-like receptor (that recognizes molecules from the microbes), as well as an enzyme called NADPH oxidase, in order to form these extracellular nets.

"The elaboration of DNA-based nets happens in both amoebae and humans," said Dr. Adam Kuspa, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Baylor College of Medicine and a senior author of the report. "It's a primordial immune system, that requires the same machinery we see in humans. To me, it pushes the needle toward convergent evolution," said Kuspa. This means the pathway for immune protection in the multi-cellular slug is similar to that seen in humans and other mammals.

"The primary antecedents of multicellular organisms are the ability to recognize self from non-self and to fight off predators. All four lineages of multicellular eukaryotes accomplish this," he said.

"We have thus discovered that what we believed to be an invention of higher animals is actually a strategy that was already active in unicellular organisms one billion years ago," said Dr. Thierry Soldati, a senior lecturer in the department of biochemistry at the University of Geneva and corresponding author of the report.