A sequence-dependent exonuclease activity from Tetrahymena thermophila

Tetrahymena thermophila

What does it look like? Tetrahymena thermophila is a unicellular eukaryote which is larger than many mammalian cells (~30 × 50 μm). It swims in temperate freshwater environments, waving its coat of cilia (Figure 1, inset) and phagocytosing food propelled into its gullet. Hunger induces Tetrahymena cells to undergo a transformation, including growth of a long posterior cilium and more coordinate...

Adolescence in Tetrahymena thermophila.

The development of sexual maturity in Tetrahymena thermophila has been shown to include an intermediate stage, adolescence, during which cells are capable of mating with mature cells but not other adolescent cells. When the progeny of successfully mated cells are grown logarithmically and tested frequently for the ability to mate, they are unable to form mating pairs for about 65 generations. T...

Nucleotide sequence and functional characterization of a mitochondrial tRNA(Trp) from Tetrahymena thermophila.

The use of the termination codon UGA as a tryptophan codon in mitochondria appears to be one of the most common deviations from the standard genetic code. This change in the mitochondrial genome is accomodated by the presence of an anticodon U*CA in mitochondrial (mt) tRNAP (1). Recently a tRNA gene with a TCA anticodon has been identified in the mt genome of the ciliates Poramecium tetraurelia...

Sequencing the Tetrahymena thermophila Genome

Multiple introns in a conjugation-specific gene from Tetrahymena thermophila.

Multiple introns have been found in a gene from a ciliated protozoan. This Tetrahymena thermophila gene (cnjB) is large (7.5 kb mRNA) and active only during conjugation, the organism's sexual cycle. Six introns ranging in size from 62 bp to 676 bp were found when we sequenced a 3.1 kb segment of the cnjB gene together with its corresponding cDNA. We estimate, by extrapolation of our current dat...