Tetrahymena RIB72A and RIB72B are microtubule inner proteins in the ciliary doublet microtubules.

Doublet and triplet microtubules are essential and highly stable core structures of centrioles, basal bodies, cilia, and flagella. In contrast to dynamic cytoplasmic micro-tubules, their luminal surface is coated with regularly arranged microtubule inner proteins (MIPs). However, the protein composition and biological function(s) of MIPs remain poorly understood.

PREDOSE: a semantic web platform for drug abuse epidemiology using social media.

Objectives: The role of social media in biomedical knowledge mining, including clinical, medical and healthcare informatics, prescription drug abuse epidemiology and drug pharmacology, has become increasingly significant in recent years. Social media offers opportunities for people to share opinions and experiences freely in online communities, which may contribute information beyond the knowledge of domain professionals. This paper describes the development of a novel semantic web platform called PREDOSE (PREscription Drug abuse Online Surveillance and Epidemiology), which is designed to facilitate the epidemiologic study of prescription (and related) drug abuse practices using social media.

ADF/cofilin is not essential but is critically important for actin activities during phagocytosis in Tetrahymena thermophila.

ADF/cofilin is a highly conserved actin-modulating protein. Reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in vivo through severing and depolymerizing of F-actin by this protein is essential for various cellular events, such as endocytosis, phagocytosis, cytokinesis, and cell migration. We show that in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, the ADF/cofilin homologue Adf73p associates with actin on nascent food vacuoles.

Hyperglutamylation of tubulin can either stabilize or destabilize microtubules in the same cell.

In most eukaryotic cells, tubulin is subjected to posttranslational glutamylation, a conserved modification of unclear function. The glutamyl side chains form as branches of the primary sequence glutamic acids in two biochemically distinct steps: initiation and elongation. The length of the glutamyl side chain is spatially controlled and microtubule type specific.

DYF-1 Is required for assembly of the axoneme in Tetrahymena thermophila.

In most cilia, the axoneme can be subdivided into three segments: proximal (the transition zone), middle (with outer doublet microtubules), and distal (with singlet extensions of outer doublet microtubules). How the functionally distinct segments of the axoneme are assembled and maintained is not well understood. DYF-1 is a highly conserved ciliary protein containing tetratricopeptide repeats.

Manipulating ciliary protein-encoding genes in Tetrahymena thermophila.

Tetrahymena thermophila has emerged as an excellent protist model for studies on cilia that are based on reverse genetic approaches. In Tetrahymena, genes can be routinely disrupted by the DNA homologous recombination. We present established protocols for the manipulation of genes in either the germline micronucleus or the somatic macronucleus.