Home / Non-PS_Flagellates_and_Ciliates / Ciliates / Tetrahymena
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Name derivation:
Four membranes (tetra- four, -hymen membrane) This genus has become a genetic model, and is the organism involved in the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." Their results were published in the 1980s.
Morphology:
Similar genera:
Habitat:
Freshwater ponds
References:
Greider CW, Blackburn EH. Identification of a specific telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts. Cell 1985; 43:405-13. Szostak JW, Blackburn EH. Cloning yeast telomeres on linear plasmid vectors. Cell 1982; 29:245-255 Greider CW, Blackburn EH. A telomeric sequence in the RNA of Tetrahymena telomerase required for telomere repeat synthesis. Nature 1989; 337:331-7.