Developmental biology of the social amoeba: history, current knowledge and prospects.

The cellular slime molds are known as the social amoebae because they conditionally construct multicellular forms in which cell differentiation takes place. Among them, Dictyostelium discoideum has many advantages as an experimental system and is widely used as a model organism. This review aims to reconsider how it has contributed to the understanding of developmental mechanisms and what should be done in the future. Chemotaxis, cell differentiation, genome and transcriptome, and the ecological and evolutionary implications of development are discussed.