Reversible life-stage transition in ciliated single-celled eukaryotes: genomic and transcriptomic insights
Unraveling the mechanisms underlying dramatic life-stage transitions triggered by environmental stress is a central question in cellular adaptation. This study focuses on a highly distinctive group of ciliates that exhibit profound morphological and organellar restructuring at single-cell level when transforming from sessile feeding forms (trophonts) to motile swimming forms (telotrochs). To decode the genomic basis of this process, we first generated chromosome-level genomes for three sessile ciliate species, Campanella sinica, Epistylis hentscheli, and Vorticella campanula, using hybrid assembly strategies.