Gene expression in Dictyostelium discoidium: mutually antagonistic roles of cyclic-AMP and ammonia

Cyclic-AMP and ammonia have been previously identified as extracellular signals during Dictyostelium development. Both are important in controlling morphological movements and cyclic-AMP also in inducing gene expression. The work in tis paper is concerned with their effects on developmental gene expression. Cyclic-AMP was found to act as an inducer during the aggregative (as exemplified by phosphodiesterase) and the post-aggregative (glycogen phosphorylase, UDP-galactose polysaccharide transferase, prespore vacuoles and stalk cells) phases of gene expression. Ammonia inhibited the appearance of each of the above markers and antagonized the inductive effects of cyclic-AMP on them. This inhibition by ammonia of cyclic-AMP inducible gene expression may involve a step linking elevated intracellular cyclic-AMP levels to gene activation. It has been suggested that the specification of cells within the aggregate into the stalk and spore pathways of differentiation might be controlled by cyclic-AMP and ammonia. In this model for pattern formation cyclic-AMP would induce stalk cell differentiation and ammonia spore formation. The present results argue against this idea since cyclic-AMP induces and ammonia inhibits differentiation along both pathways. The function of these agents may rather be to coordinate the rates of biochemical differentiation of individual cells and link them to the overall morphological changes occurring during development.