Species name： Dictyostelium discoideum
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Taro Uyeda
Usually cells can divide by itself. Biron et al. (2001) found that isolated cells of Entamoeba invadens frequently fail to divide, but a neighbor cell migrate toward the equator of those dividing cells and help the division to complete. This process is dependent on chemotaxis of the neighbor "midwife" cell toward the equatorial cortex. The cells of Dictyostelium discoideum can divide fairly efficiently by themselves, but similar to Entamoeba cells, neighbor cells (red) do chemotax toward the equatorial region of a dividing cell (green). This process is not essential in Dictyostelium, but improves the success rate of division, and was named cytokinesis D.
(2013.08.23)