Some Alternative States of Amoeba, with Special Reference to Life-Span
- 1 January 1959
- journal article
- research article
- Published by S. Karger AG in Gerontology
- Vol. 3 (2) , 76-90
- https://doi.org/10.1159/000210844
Abstract
A comparison has been made of amoebae from the same clone, either kept continuously on a food supply permitting logarithmic vegetative multiplication, or kept for a variable period on a food supply adequate only for maintenance. Amoebae exposed to the growth diet only will multiply indefinitely, and have no defined life-span. If exposed for more than 2 weeks to the maintenance diet,, and then transferred to the growth diet, they have a defined life-span, which varies from about 30 days, up to about 30 weeks, according to the conditions of exposure to the maintenance diet. At least 4 types of amoebae with defined life-span were obtained. Three of these, after transfer to growth diet, are capable of a phase of logarithmic multiplication before death. The 4th type, though capable of repeated division, produces only 1 viable cell at division, the other cell dying in a few days. These data are considered to involve different alternative metastable states of the cell.Keywords
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