Considerations of symmetry in the cortical integration of tetrahymena doublets

Abstract

Homopolar doublets of syngen 1, T. pyriformis, may be induced by treatment of conjugating pairs with immobilizing antiserum. These doublets have geometric properties and basal body populations generally indicative of separate autonomous integrative systems in the two halves. The duplex system, though metastable, is transformed through a process of "simplification" back to the simplex state. The transformation is not a single event, but a series involving changes at different times for different structures and processes; for the micronuclei and the macronuclei; for the capacity to generate two oral apparatuses through stomatogenesis and the capacity to develop them through oral replacement; for the structures at the anterior and posterior ends of the cell; for the numbers of ciliary rows and for the numbers of basal bodies which make up the rows. Although the two semicells composing a doublet are in important respects independent of each other, they are coordinated in significant ways. The positions of the contractile vacuole pores and their numbers depend not only on the number of ciliary rows in a semicell, but also on the number of ciliary rows in the opposing twin. Most notably, the probability for dual stomatogenesis, and hence the perpetuation of the doubled oral apparatus, depends on the symmetry of the semicells. The cell as a whole is maintained as an integrated unit over a prolonged interval as various aspects of duplex structure and function are progressively consolidated.