From autophagic to necrotic cell death in Dictyostelium.

Among unusual models to study cell death mechanisms, the protist Dictyostelium is remarkable because of its strategic phylogenetic position, with early emergence among eukaryotes and unicellular/multicellular transition, and its very favorable experimental and genetic flexibility. Dictyostelium shows developmental vacuolar cell death, and in vitro monolayer approaches revealed both an autophagic vacuolar and a necrotic type of cell death. These are described in some detail, as well as implications and future prospects.