The 'Janus A' gene encodes a polo-kinase whose loss creates a dorsal/ventral intracellular homeosis in the ciliate, .

Genetic studies on the protist, provide a glimpse into the unexpectedly rich world of intracellular patterning that unfolds within the ciliate cell cortex. Ciliate pattern studies provide a useful counterpoint to animal models of pattern formation in that the unicellular model draws attention away from fields of cells (or nuclei) as the principal players in the metazoan pattern paradigm, focusing instead on fields of ciliated basal bodies serving as sources of positional information. In this study, we identify , a Polo kinase of , that serves as an important factor driving global, circumferential pattern.

Mutual antagonism between Hippo signaling and cyclin E drives intracellular pattern formation.

Not much is known about how organelles organize into patterns. In ciliates, the cortical pattern is propagated during "tandem duplication," a cell division that remodels the parental cell into two daughter cells. A key step is the formation of the division boundary along the cell's equator.