Dictyostelium development

From single amoebae to a fruiting body: 14 modules and 52 reviewed genes

AI Gene Review · projects/DICTYOSTELIUM_DEVELOPMENT · 2026

Bottom line

  • Starving Dictyostelium amoebae aggregate by cAMP relay and build a stalk and spore fruiting body in about a day.
  • We split development into 14 modules, reviewed 52 genes covering all of them, and authored 8 DRAFT ModuleReview documents.
  • 1,478 annotations: 797 accepted, 546 non-core, 42 modified, 37 over-annotated, 19 removed, 37 undecided.

The program and its modules

Why Dictyostelium

  • The standard model for the step from unicellular to multicellular life.
  • Development is driven by cell–cell signalling (cAMP, DIF-1, SDF-2), chemotaxis and a binary prestalk / prespore fate choice.
  • Large paralog families (cAR1–4, three adenylyl cyclases, ~15 histidine kinases) test how IBA/IEA propagation behaves within a genome.

Actions by review batch

What the reviews found

  • Paralog propagation: adenylate cyclase activator activity over-annotated on cAR3; purinergic-receptor IEA removed from cAR1–3; phosphorelay IEAs removed from ACR.
  • statC: metazoan JAK-STAT signalling → receptor signalling via STAT (GO:0097696).
  • Other removals include mitotic cytokinesis (IBA) on RasC, fatty acid and flavonoid biosynthesis on the DIF-1 polyketide synthase StlB, and DNA binding on spore-coat CotB.
  • High non-core share (546) reflects many pleiotropic developmental and motility rows kept but not core.

A Dictyostelium module

dicty_sdf2_encapsulation_relay: AcbA → TagC → SDF-2 ⊣ DhkA → RegA ⊣ PKA; one of 8 DRAFT modules grounded in the gene reviews.

Status and next steps

  • ✅ 52 genes reviewed and validated; all 14 modules represented; 8 ModuleReviews.
  • ⬜ Per-gene notes journals; expert second-pass QA.
  • ⬜ Deeper paralogs: tgr locus, Ras/Rap, dhk/grl, ecm/cot, statB/statD.
  • ⬜ rdeA is reviewed but not yet listed on the page or grounded in the SDF-2 module.

Read more: projects/DICTYOSTELIUM_DEVELOPMENT.md · modules/dicty_*.yaml · genes/DICDI/