Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 29, 2026

In Vivo Proximity Biotinylation for Protein Interaction Studies in Paramecium tetraurelia
Published on: September 12, 2025
Keeping the soma free of transposons: programmed DNA elimination in ciliates
Ursula E Schoeberl1, Kazufumi Mochizuki
1Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), A-1030 Vienna, Austria.
Abstract:
Many transposon-related sequences are removed from the somatic macronucleus of ciliates during sexual reproduction. In the ciliate Tetrahymena, an RNAi-related mechanism produces small noncoding RNAs that induce heterochromatin formation, which is followed by DNA elimination. Because RNAi-related mechanisms repress transposon activities in a variety of eukaryotes, the DNA elimination mechanism of ciliates might have evolved from these types of transposon-silencing mechanisms. Nuclear dimorphism allows ciliates to identify any DNA that has invaded the germ-line micronucleus using small RNAs and a whole genome comparison of the micronucleus and the somatic macronucleus.
More Related Videos
10:58Transposon Mediated Integration of Plasmid DNA into the Subventricular Zone of Neonatal Mice to Generate Novel Models of Glioblastoma
Published on: February 22, 2015
10:08Genetic Mapping of Thermotolerance Differences Between Species of Saccharomyces Yeast via Genome-Wide Reciprocal Hemizygosity Analysis
Published on: August 12, 2019
Related Concept Videos
DNA-only Transposons
The donor site from where the transposon is excised is either degraded or...
Transposons
Non-LTR Retrotransposons
Overview of Transposition and Recombination
piRNA - Piwi-interacting RNAs
LTR Retrotransposons
The internal coding region of LTR retrotransposons and their mechanism of transposition closely resembles a...