Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Slime Moulds – Dictyostelium, How Blebs and Pseudopodia Cooperate During Chemotaxis

In this paper Tyson et al. show that in Dictyostelium, blebs, which are extensions of the plasma membrane that are pressure-driven, form preferentially in concave regions of the plasma membrane when the organism is migrating. They propose that the underlying physical reason is membrane tension, which provides an outward force at the concavities. Continued polymerisation of actin can transform blebs into pseudopods and pseudopods can trigger blebs on their flanks. Therefore, during chemotaxis the 2 forms of protrusion can cooperate.

Sources & Further reading

1. Tyson, R. A., E. Zatulovskiy, R. R. Kay and T. Bretschneider (2014). "How blebs and pseudopods cooperate during chemotaxis [slime mould]." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(32): 11703-11708.