Dictyostelium development - socializing through cAMP

Starving Dictyostelium amoebae use cAMP as a chemoattractant to gather into aggregates, as a hormone-like signal to induce cell differentiation, and a s an intracellular messenger to control stalk- and spore cell maturation an d germination of spores. In this chapter we describe the respective roles o f the three adenylyl cyclases ACA, ACB and ACG in controling cAMP signaling during development and we discuss how cAMP signals are processed by the ce lls to trigger the large repertoire of gene regulatory events that is rende r control of this signal molecule.