PgmNr C7005: Environmental temperature and its impact on the process of programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium.

Authors:
F. Catania; G. Churakov


Institutes
Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, Muenster, DE.


Abstract:

In ciliates the process of programmed DNA elimination is crucial for the formation of viable sexual offspring. The elimination of thousands of Internal Eliminated Sequences (IESs) from the germline genome occurs at each sexual event and enables the regeneration of a functional somatic nucleus.

Given how critical it is, one may expect that IES excision is virtually insusceptible to mild environmental stress. The impacts of environmental conditions on the accuracy of IES elimination remain an open question, however. We attempted to address this question by exposing self-fertilizing clonal Paramecium lines to different environmental temperatures and then by screening these lines’ somatic genome for IES retention. Our observations provide insights on the extent to which the fidelity of genome rearrangements in Paramecium varies in response to environmental changes.