dictyNews Electronic Edition Volume 40, number 29 November 14, 2014 Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been accepted for publication by sending them to dicty@northwestern.edu or by using the form at http://dictybase.org/db/cgi-bin/dictyBase/abstract_submit. Back issues of dictyNews, the Dicty Reference database and other useful information is available at dictyBase - http://dictybase.org. Follow dictyBase on twitter: http://twitter.com/dictybase ========= Abstracts ========= Epilepsy Research Methods Update: Understanding the causes of epileptic seizures and identifying new treatments using non-mammalian model organisms Vincent T Cunliffe*, Richard A Baines, Carlo NG Giachello, Wei-Hsiang Lin, Alan Morgan, Markus Reuber, Claire Russell, Matthew C Walker, Robin SB Williams Seizure , in press This narrative review is intended to introduce clinicians treating epilepsy and researchers familiar with mammalian models of epilepsy to experimentally tractable, non-mammalian research models used in epilepsy research, ranging from unicellular eukaryotes to more complex multicellular organisms. The review focuses on four model organisms: the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the zebrafish Danio rerio. We consider recent discoveries made with each model organism and discuss the importance of these advances for the understanding and treatment of epilepsy in humans. The relative ease with which mutations in genes of interest can be produced and studied quickly and cheaply in these organisms, together with their anatomical and physiological simplicity in comparison to mammalian species, are major advantages when researchers are trying to unravel complex disease mechanisms. The short generation times of most of these model organisms also mean that they lend themselves particularly conveniently to the investigation of drug effects or epileptogenic processes across the lifecourse. Submitted by Robin Williams [robin.williams@rhul.ac.uk] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The ABC Transporter, AbcB3, Mediates cAMP Export In D. discoideum Development Edward Roshan Miranda, Edward A. Nam, Adam Kuspa and Gad Shaulsky Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030 Developmental Biology, in press Extracellular cAMP functions as a primary ligand for cell surface cAMP receptors throughout Dictyostelium discoideum development, controlling chemotaxis and morphogenesis. The developmental consequences of cAMP signaling and the metabolism of cAMP have been studied in great detail, but it has been unclear how cells export cAMP across the plasma membrane. Here we show pharmacologically and genetically that ABC transporters mediate cAMP export. Using an evolutionary-developmental biology approach, we identified several candidate abc genes and characterized one of them, abcB3, in more detail. Genetic and biochemical evidence suggest that AbcB3 is a component of the cAMP export mechanism in D. discoideum development. Submitted by Gad Shaulsky [gadi@bcm.edu] ============================================================== [End dictyNews, volume 40, number 29]