Each species of

slime mold Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mul ...

has its own specific chemical messenger, which are collectively referred to as acrasins. These chemicals signal that many individual cells aggregate to form a single large cell or

plasmodium ''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a ve ...

. One of the earliest acrasins to be identified was

cAMP Camp may refer to: Outdoor accommodation and recreation * Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site * a temporary settlement for nomads * Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...

, found in the species ''

Dictyostelium discoideum ''Dictyostelium discoideum'' is a species of soil-dwelling amoeba belonging to the phylum Amoebozoa, infraphylum Mycetozoa. Commonly referred to as slime mold, ''D. discoideum'' is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular ...

'' by Brian Shaffer, which exhibits a complex swirling-pulsating spiral pattern when forming a pseudoplasmodium. The term acrasin was descriptively named after Acrasia from Edmund Spenser's

Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

, who seduced men against their will and then transformed them into beasts. Acrasia is itself a play on the Greek

akrasia Akrasia (; Greek , "lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment. The adjectival form is "akratic". Classical approa ...

that describes loss of free will.

Extraction

Brian Shaffer was the first to purify acrasin, now known to be cyclic AMP, in 1954, using methanol. Glorin, the acrasin of ''P. violaceum'', can be purified by inhibiting the acrasin-degrading enzyme acrasinase with alcohol, extracting with alcohol and separating with column chromatography.

Notes

#
Evidence for the formation of cell aggregates by chemotaxis in the development of the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum
- J.T.Bonner and L.J.Savage Journal of Experimental Biology Vol. 106, pp. 1, October (1947) Cell Biology #

- B.M.Shaffer Nature Vol. 79, pp. 975, (1953) Cell Biology #
Identification of a pterin as the acrasin of the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium lacteum
- Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

United States Vol. 79, pp. 6270–6274, October (1982) Cell Biology #
Hunting Slime Moulds
- Adele Conover, Smithsonian Magazine Online (2001)

References

{{Reflist Cell biology