Robustness of ciliates gene assembly

Ciliates are highly complex single-cell organisms, yet very successful from evolutionary point of view they emerged eon years ago and derived into many thousands of known species. Robustness may have an essential contribution to their survival. In this paper, we discuss the robustness of ciliates gene assembly, a process that transforms a diploid micronucleus to a macronucleus and involves massive genome rearrangement. We also consider the evolution aspects of this process the origin of scrambled micronuclear genes and mutations at noncoding/coding junctions. To each of the biological process a computational model is associated, which together bring new perspectives on the robustness of this group of organisms seen as the following: 1) a broken micronuclear gene may be reconnected in many different ways, thus results in various scrambled gene forms; mutations at the noncoding/coding junctions in the micronuclear gene may not change the organism function, but possibly have the same protein to be coded differently in derivative species; 2) the scrambled and mutated genes are propagated among population via gene exchange during the cell life cycle, and brought to cell function via the process of gene assembly, thus result in genetically new and potentially more varied organisms.