Ciliates are a highly divergent group of unicellular eukaryotes with separate somatic and
germline genomes found in distinct dimorphic nuclei. This characteristic feature is tightly …

Ciliates belong to a monophyletic group of unicellular eukaryotes within the Alveolate
branch (1). The species that have been used as model organisms are free‐living organisms …

The germline genome of the binucleated ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila undergoes
programmed chromosome breakage and massive DNA elimination to generate the somatic …

In the ciliate Paramecium, transposable elements and their single-copy remnants are
deleted during the development of somatic macronuclei from germline micronuclei, at each …

How to achieve protein diversity by genome and transcriptome processing is essential for
organismal complexity and adaptation. The present work identifies that the macronuclear …

During the development of the somatic genome from the Paramecium germline genome the
bulk of the copies of∼ 45 000 unique, internal eliminated sequences (IESs) are deleted. IES …

This special issue of the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology (JEM) summarizes
achievements obtained by generations of researchers with ciliates in widely different …

Can ecological changes impact somatic genome development? Efforts to resolve this
question could reveal a direct link between environmental changes and somatic variability …

Mutation accumulation (MA) experiments are conventionally employed to study
spontaneous germline mutations. However, MA experiments can also shed light on somatic …

Unicellular organisms such as ciliates are largely neglected in research on adaptive
developmental plasticity, although their nuclear dualism offers ideal circumstances to study …