Category: Uncategorized

SACRIFICING INDIVIDUALITY. “By aggregating, individual Dictyostelium cells may gain the same benefits as ‘selfish herds’ of animals—individuals move towards each other to lower their risk of predation. A major protective component of the slug is the slime sheath—a mucopolysaccharide exudate, rich in protein and trilamellar cellulose that encloses the cellular core.” https://academic.oup.com/femsre/article/40/6/798/2400841 View in LinkedIn

HYPOTHESIS. "We hypothesized that exonic splice enhancers might be avoided in intronless genes, as the recruitment of splicing factors to the transcript could theoretically cause the activation of cryptic splice sites and thus lead to inappropriate RNA processing." https://lnkd.in/drMDPh6 View in LinkedIn

ENVIRONMENTALLY TRIGGERED. “The Physarum slime mold is a large multinuclear cell, formed in response to environmental conditions.” https://lnkd.in/gawWKmt View in LinkedIn

EXON SKEWING. "In addition, both codon and amino acid usage are skewed near exon ends in a way that is consistent with an effect of exonic splice enhancers." https://lnkd.in/drMDPh6 View in LinkedIn

THE LINK. “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.” https://academic.oup.com/femsre/article-abstract/40/6/798/2400841 View in LinkedIn

FOOTNOTE. "Germ cells are often described as the ultimate totipotent stem cell. However, germ cells give rise to only sperm or eggs, and it is not until the fertilization of the egg or parthenogenesis that an entirely new organism arises. Therefore, germ cells are unipotent cells that retain a totipotent potential that is eventually transferred to the zygote at fertilization." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286740800202X View in LinkedIn

IMMORTAL GERMLINE. "At fertilization, the haploid egg and sperm genomes unite and produce an entirely new organism, and the everlasting germline cycle continues from one generation to the next. The germline thus escapes the mortality that all somatic cells of an organism ultimately confront." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286740800202X View in LinkedIn

PAIRING. "We propose that RNA transcripts retained on the chromosome play an active role in recognition of homologous chromosomes for pairing." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6082/732 View in LinkedIn

NON-CODING RNA. "Pairing and recombination of homologous chromosomes are essential for ensuring reductional segregation in meiosis. However, the mechanisms by which chromosomes recognize their homologous partners are poorly understood. Here, we report that the sme2 gene encodes a meiosis-specific noncoding RNA that mediates homologous recognition in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe." https://lnkd.in/gNZmnGV View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends focused on the not-so-humble slime mold family. Victorians liked flea circuses. Slime molds would have been better under time lapse. The human time scale misses the details of lives living on different time scales. Next weekend we see the slime molds at their best. View in LinkedIn