Increasing environmental pollution and the continuous development of new chemicals and drugs has led to ever growing concern about the potential effects of these compounds directly or indirectly on human health. As concerns water pollution, protozoa seem to be an excellent tool to assess both toxicity and pollution: they are regarded as biological indicators of pollution when their presence or ...

Two monoclonal antibodies, AXO 49 and TAP 952, probed with carboxy-terminal peptides from Paramecium axonemal tubulin and with polyglycylated synthetic peptides, are found to recognize differently tubulin polyglycylation, the most recently identified posttranslational modification discovered in Paramecium axonemal tubulin. With these antibodies, we show that tubulin polyglycylation is widely di...

The spatial distribution of ciliate assemblages was studied in a shallow floodplain lake with sharp division space by oxygen conditions. surface zone occupied the “carpet” Lemna trisulca and L. minor characterized large daily amplitude content periodic exceeding 100% saturation; underlying water layer microaerobic conditions throughout most year, seasonal deviations towards oxygen-free (in wint...

Telomere proteins from ciliated protozoa bind to the single-stranded G-rich DNA extensions at the ends of macronuclear chromosomes. We have now identified homologous proteins in fission yeast and in humans. These Pot1 (protection of telomeres) proteins each bind the G-rich strand of their own telomeric repeat sequence, consistent with a direct role in protecting chromosome ends. Deletion of the...

Ciliated protozoa have two kinds of nuclei: Macronuclei (MAC) and Micronuclei (MIC). In some ciliate classes, such as spirotrichs, most genes undergo several layers of DNA rearrangement during macronuclear development. Because of such processes, these organisms provide ideal systems for studying mechanisms of recombination and gene rearrangement. Here, we describe a database that contains all s...

Abstract A quantitative study of the population structure activated sludge is an important component biological wastewater treatment control. However, in studying live samples sludge, some complications arise, particular, associated with relatively short time subsample suitability. part sample that placed on a glass slide and which organisms are counted. The issue optimization counts large ampl...

We have read with interest the article published in your journal by Xue et al. [1] regarding a case report of bronchopul-monary infection by the multiflagellated protozoon Loph-omonas blattarum (LB). After observing carefully the images showed by authors, we think that there may be a misidentifi-cation of detached ciliated bronchial cells as true LB. The figures for the fresh samples may reflec...