Most wild type Tetrahymena have a macronucleus and a micronucleus. The micronucleus, seen here, is essentially nonfunctional during interphase. Its function is to replicate and pass a complete copy of the genome to each daughter cell and to give rise to a new macronucleus following sexual reproduction. Many laboratory strains, unlike strain W which is shown here, have lost their micronucleus and seem to be able to live indefinitely without a micronucleus, however, they can no longer undergo meiosis and sexual reproduction. TEM taken on 4/8/65 by R. Allen with RCA EMU3F operating at 50kV. Neg. 9,100X. Bar = 0.5?m. The negative was printed to paper and the image was scanned to Photoshop. This digitized image is available for qualitative analysis. An unprocessed, high resolution version of this image (CIL:34534) is in the library and available for quantitative analysis. Additional information available at (http://www5.pbrc.hawaii.edu/allen/).
Biological Process: Micronucleus organization, Autophagy
Standard glutaraldehyde fixation followed by osmium tetroxide, dehydrated in alcohol and embedded in an epoxy resin. Microtome sections prepared at approximately 75nm thickness. Additional information available at (http://www5.pbrc.hawaii.edu/allen/).
Author: Richard Allen (University of Hawaii)
Source: The Cell: An Image Library
