Molecular phylogenetic analyses have recently shown that the unicellular amoeboid protist Capsaspora owczarzaki is unlikely to be a nucleariid or an ichthyosporean as previously described, but is more closely related to Metazoa, Choanoflagellata, and Ichthyosporea. However, the specific phylogenetic relationship of Capsaspora to other protist opisthokont lineages was poorly resolved. To test th...

The green plant lineage is the second major multicellular expansion among the eukaryotes, arising from unicellular ancestors to produce the incredible diversity of morphologies and habitats observed today. In the unicellular ancestors, secretion of material through the endomembrane system was the major mechanism for interacting and shaping the external environment. In a multicellular organism, ...

We consider unicellular maps, or polygon gluings, of fixed genus. A few years ago the first author gave a recursive bijection transforming unicellular maps into trees, explaining the presence of Catalan numbers in counting formulas for these objects. In this paper, we give another bijection that explicitly describes the “recursive part” of the first bijection. As a result we obtain a very simpl...

Previous experiments on physical non-contact communication within same species gave rise to test for this type of communication also across the species border, which was the aim of the present study. It was found that autotrophic unicellular organisms (Euglena viridis), separated by cuvettes, affected the proliferation rate of heterotrophic unicellular organisms (Paramecium caudatum). Further, ...

While early eukaryotic life must have been unicellular, multicellular lifeforms evolved multiple times from protistan ancestors in diverse eukaryotic lineages. The origins of multicellularity are of special interest because they require evolutionary transitions towards increased levels of complexity. We have generated new sequence data from the nuclear large subunit ribosomal DNA gene (LSU rDNA...

Introduction: Response to morphine and role of Nitric Oxide (NO) on expression of morphine response has been studied in vertebrates. But, little evidence is provided in the matter in earlier invertebrates. This investigation for the first time evaluated the effect of NO on expression of morphine potency in Paramecium caudatum. Methods: Animal after isolation from natural media and specific i...

Studies of the biogenesis of the photosynthetic protein complexes in the unicellular green alga

Multicellular organisms can clearly benefit from the noninflammatory elimination by apoptosis of unnecessary and potentially harmful cells. Recently accumulated data show that unicellular organisms such as pathogenic trypanosomatids can also take advantage of different apoptotic features [1]. As a matter of fact, similarities between multicellular organisms and the multicellular organization of...

In 1934, the year Harold Urey was awarded a Nobel prize in chemistry for the discovery of deuterium, Alfred Redfield (Fig. 1), a 44-year-old animal physiologist at Harvard University, proposed that marine plankton have relatively constrained elemental ratios (Redfield 1934). The so-called Redfield ratios of 106 C: 16 N: 1 P (by atoms) were subsequently embraced by many biological oceanographers...

Both unicellular and filamentous cyanobacteria exhibit diverse types of motility, including the ability to move on surfaces and to swim in liquids. Motile behaviour can be regulated such that cyanobacteria can respond to important environmental signals such as light or chemical gradients. In some cases, components of the motility machinery, such as Type IV pili that allow certain unicellular sp...