Facultative cheater mutants reveal the genetic complexity of cooperation in social amoebae

Lorenzo A. Santorelli, Christopher R. L. Thompson, Elizabeth Villegas, Jessica Svetz, Christopher Dinh, Anup Parikh, Richard Sucgang, Adam Kuspa, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller and Gad Shaulsky ()
Additional contact information
Lorenzo A. Santorelli: Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Christopher R. L. Thompson: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics,
Elizabeth Villegas: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics,
Jessica Svetz: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics,
Christopher Dinh: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
Anup Parikh: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics,
Richard Sucgang: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
Adam Kuspa: Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Joan E. Strassmann: Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
David C. Queller: Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Gad Shaulsky: Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

Nature, 2008, vol. 451, issue 7182, 1107-1110

Abstract: Cheating but cleverly The evolution of cooperation is central to the transition by organisms from unicellular to multicellular states. Mutant cells that 'cheat' by benefiting from the cooperation of others but offering nothing in return are seen to undermine cooperation. This view is questioned by a new study of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. A genome-wide scan reveals more than 100 mutations that allow cheating. Many of these cheaters were of an unusual and clever type; they facultatively cheat others while cooperating amongst themselves and developing normally. These findings challenge the idea that cheaters threaten the existence of cooperation: facultative cheaters dominate this system, yet they can spread through a population leaving cooperation intact.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06558 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:451:y:2008:i:7182:d:10.1038_nature06558

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature06558

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().