title: Tetrahymena thermophila, a unicellular eukaryote with separate germline and somatic genomes.
abstract: Tetrahymena thermophila is a ciliate--a unicellular eukaryote. Remarkably, every cell maintains differentiated germline and somatic genomes: one silent, the other expressed. Moreover, the two genomes undergo diverse processes, some as extreme as life and death, simultaneously in the same cytoplasm. Conserved eukaryotic mechanisms have been modified in ciliates to selectively deal with the two genomes. We describe research in several areas of Tetrahymena biology, including meiosis, amitosis, genetic assortment, selective nuclear pore transport, somatic RNAi-guided heterochromatin formation, DNA excision and programmed nuclear death by autophagy, which has enriched and broadened knowledge of those mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. Eduardo.Orias@lifesci.ucsb.edu
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Orias
authors.forename: Marcella D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Cervantes
authors.forename: Eileen P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Hamilton
mesh_terms: D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000235:genetics*; D048750:Cell Nucleus Division; D018503:Genome, Protozoan; D034622:RNA Interference; D016808:Tetrahymena thermophila / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics*