Tetrahymena thermophila and Paramecium tetraurelia are ciliates that reassign TAA and TAG from stop codons to glutamine codons. Because of the lack of full genome sequences, few studies have concentrated on analyzing the effects of codon reassignment in protein evolution. We used the recently sequenced genome of these species to analyze the patterns of amino acid substitution in ciliates that r...

Alveolates are a diverse group of protists that includes three major lineages: ciliates, apicomplexa, and dinoflagellates. Among these three, it is thought that the apicomplexa and dinoflagellates are more closely related to one another than to ciliates. However, this conclusion is based almost entirely on results from ribosomal RNA phylogeny because very few morphological characters address th...

Factors Influencing Size of the Protozoal Population .................................................................. 28 Diurnal Variations in the Holotrich Population ............................................ ......................28 IN VITRO CULTIVATION OF HOLOTRICH PROTOZOA...........................................................28 TECHNIQUES FOR ISOLATION OF HOLOTRICH CILIATES FROM R...

The isolation and characterisation of a novel protist lineage enables the reconstruction of early evolutionary events that gave rise to ciliates, malaria parasites, and coral symbionts. These events include dramatic changes in mitochondrial genome content and organisation.

The formal theory of intramolecular gene assembly in ciliates is fitted into the well-established theories of Euler circuits in 4-regular graphs, principal pivot transformations, and delta-matroids.

Growth rates of microphagous ciliates (forms which feed primarily on picoplankton-sized prey) were estimated, along with rates of their consumption by copepods, in shipboard experiments conducted in the mesohaline portion of Chesapeake Bay, USA, under contrasting water column conditions in April, June, and August 1987. Estimates were based on temporal changes in cell densities in size-fractiona...

This study evaluated the importance of heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNF) and ciliates bacterivory in a mesotrophic subtropical environment (Lobo-Broa Reservoir, Brazil) by the quantification of their ingestion rates. The in situ experiments using fluorescently labelled bacteria (FLB) were carried out bimonthly over one year (three surveys in the dry season and three in the rainy one) at the s...

Sexual reproduction (conjugation) in protozoan ciliates is induced by specific cell-cell interactions between cells of complementary mating types. The ancestral ciliate Blepharisma japonicum has two mating types, I and II. The substances that act as signaling molecules in this extracellular interaction for conjugation are called gamones. The glycoprotein gamone 1, produced by mating type I cell...

Euplotes nobilii and Euplotes raikovi are phylogenetically closely allied species of marine ciliates, living in polar and temperate waters, respectively. Their evolutional relation and the sharply different temperatures of their natural environments make them ideal organisms to investigate thermal-adaptation. We perform a comparative study of the thermal unfolding of disulfide-rich protein pher...