title: Just the right size: cell counting in Dictyostelium.
abstract: The regulation of tissue and organism size plays an essential, but poorly understood, role in multicellular development. Genes have been identified that affect body and organ size in a number of animals. Two recently identified genes, smlA and countin, are required for the proper function of a cell-counting mechanism that regulates organism size in the eukaryotic microorganism Dictyostelium discoideum. The discovery of this process now allows the study of size regulation in a simple multicellular system.
authors.affiliation: Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biology, Center for Molecular Genetics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0634, USA. jmbrown@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Firtel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001824:Body Constitution / Q000235:genetics*; D002455:Cell Division / Q000235:genetics; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D009154:Mutation; D015800:Protozoan Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D015800:Protozoan Proteins; C101537:SmlA protein, Dictyostelium discoideum; C120918:countin protein, Dictyostelium discoideum