Folic Acid as Second Chemotactic Substance in the Cellular Slime Moulds (original) (raw)

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• Published: 07 June 1972

Nature New Biology volume 237, pages 181–182 (1972) Cite this article

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Abstract

IT has been known for some time that in certain species of cellular slime moulds acrasin, the substance which attracts the amoebae to central collection points during the aggregation phase, is cyclic AMP1–4. We were also able to show that E. coli gave off another substance besides cyclic AMP (henceforth referred to as bacterial factor, or BF) which attracted the vegetative amoebae of _Dictyostelium discoideum_5. Here we demonstrate that this second attractant has the properties of folic acid or one of its derivatives. We also show that folic acid and related compounds not only attract the vegetative amoebae of D. discoideum (No. NC-4H) but also the amoebae of six other species (Dictyostelium rosarium No. CC-7; D. mucoroides No. 11; D. purpureum No. 2; D. minutum No. V-3; Polysphondylium violaceum No. 1; P. pallidum No. 2). For the latter three species cyclic AMP is not the aggregative attractant (ref. 6 and J. T. B., E. M. H., S. Noller, F. B. Oleson and A. B. Roberts, in preparation) which raises the interesting question of whether their acrasin might be related to the folates.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540
   PAULINE PAN, E. M. HALL & J. T. BONNER

Authors

1. PAULINE PAN
2. E. M. HALL
3. J. T. BONNER

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PAN, P., HALL, E. & BONNER, J. Folic Acid as Second Chemotactic Substance in the Cellular Slime Moulds.Nature New Biology 237, 181–182 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio237181a0

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• Received: 23 December 1971
• Revised: 04 February 1972
• Issue date: 07 June 1972
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio237181a0

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