A second signal for autophagic cell death?
Dictyostelium cells in monolayers in vitro lend themselves well to a study of autophagic cell death (ACD). There is no apoptosis machinery in the protist Dictyostelium, no caspase nor Bcl-2 family members (except a paracaspase whose inactivation does not alter cell death), thus there is no apoptosis that could interfere with, or substitute for, nonapoptotic cell death. Also, Dictyostelium, a eukaryote, has a haploid genome, which facilitates random insertional mutagenesis.