In macronuclear DNA of the ciliated protozoan Paramecium caudatum, we identified a gene homologous to aubergine/piwi in Drosophila and ZWILLE in Arabidopsis, which have recently been shown to regulate the maintenance of stem cell in animals and plants. The DNA sequence was considered to be actually transcribed because it was also obtained from cDNA of vegetative phase cells by RACE-PCR. The gen...
