The Dictyostelium Stock Center

The eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum is a model organism widely used for the study of cellular processes such as cell motility, chemotaxis, signal transduction, cellular response to drugs, and host-pathogen interactions. Dictyostelium’s genome includes genes with significant homology to vertebrate, yeast and microbial genes, attracting researchers interested in a wide variety of biological topics such as human disease, comparative genomics, and self/non-self recognition. The Dictyostelium research community has significantly benefited from the Dicty Stock Center (DSC), a central repository of strains and plasmids that provides a cost-effective means of ensuring that strains are widely available and maintained in standardized conditions. The DSC enables new Dictyostelium researchers to obtain tested research materials and quickly start new research projects at minimal costs. The knowledgeable DSC staff provides technical support and protocols for effective handling of the strains. The DSC also benefits greatly from its synergistic integration with dictyBase, the model organism database (MOD) for Dictyostelium, which provides the web interface for strain and plasmid annotations, and allows strain orders to be submitted online. The DSC collects genetically modified strains of Dictyostelium and other species of social amoebae that contain novel phenotypes and which would be difficult to re-engineer. It also offers both expression and gene-targeting plasmids from experienced researchers that would be time consuming to reconstruct. This application seeks support to continue operating this community resource. The goals of this proposal are twofold: (1) Maintain, expand, and distribute the DSC collection by continuing to collect, annotate and distribute strains from Dictyostelium and related organisms, focusing on mutants that produce phenotypes and marked strains (such as GFP fusions) as well as useful plasmids, cDNA libraries, and antibodies following continuously updated standard operating procedures; (2) Create MyDSC to improve usability and utility for users by creating personalized user accounts, allowing users to change, update or delete their orders, request unavailable strains, and to leave comments pertaining to growth habits or phenotypes for each strain; this system will also facilitate communications between users and DSC staff, easing the workflow on both sides. Implementing these improvements will increase efficiency for DSC staff and greatly improve the online experience for users.