ArticlePLoS biology2017
A critical-like collective state leads to long-range cell communication in Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation.
Article in PLoS biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cell division sets a universal flow geometry in cell layers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Emergent eukaryotic directional sensing via receptor degradation and diffusion.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinase inhibits Ras activation and regulates chemorepulsion in Dictyostelium discoideum.Journal of cell science · 2023Article
- Exploring the criticality hypothesis using programmable swarm robots with Vicsek-like interactions.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Article
- A chemorepellent inhibits local Ras activation to inhibit pseudopod formation to bias cell movement away from the chemorepellent.Molecular biology of the cell · 2022Article
- Multi-scale analysis and modelling of collective migration in biological systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Bacterial surface motility is modulated by colony-scale flow and granular jamming.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2020Article
- Maximal information transmission is compatible with ultrasensitive biological pathways.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Long-range temporal coordination of gene expression in synthetic microbial consortia.Nature chemical biology · 2019Article
- Matrix feedback enables diverse higher-order patterning of the extracellular matrix.PLoS computational biology · 2019Article
- Screening by changes in stereotypical behavior during cell motility.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Shared behavioral mechanisms underlieeLife · 2019Article
- Universality of biochemical feedback and its application to immune cells.Physical review. E · 2019Article
- The hallmarks of living systems: towards creating artificial cells.Interface focus · 2018Review
- Adaptive self-organization in the embryo: its importance to adult anatomy and to tissue engineering.Journal of anatomy · 2018Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
The transition from single-cell to multicellular behavior is important in early development but rarely studied. The starvation-induced aggregation of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum into a multicellular slug is known to result from single-cell chemotaxis towards emitted pulses of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). However, how exactly do transient, short-range chemical gradients lead to coherent collective movement at a macroscopic scale? Here, we developed a multiscale model verified by quantitative microscopy to describe behaviors ranging widely from chemotaxis and excitability of individual cells to aggregation of thousands of cells. To better understand the mechanism of long-range cell-cell communication and hence aggregation, we analyzed cell-cell correlations, showing evidence of self-organization at the onset of aggregation (as opposed to following a leader cell). Surprisingly, cell collectives, despite their finite size, show features of criticality known from phase transitions in physical systems. By comparing wild-type and mutant cells with impaired aggregation, we found the longest cell-cell communication distance in wild-type cells, suggesting that criticality provides an adaptive advantage and optimally sized aggregates for the dispersal of spores.
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