Mutational analysis of patterning of oral structures in Tetrahymena. I. Effects of increased size on organization.

The oral apparatus (OA) of the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila consists of four ordered arrays of ciliary units. In wild-type cells, these arrays are constant in spatial organization and vary little in size except during extreme starvation. Recessive mutations at five gene loci are known to increase the size of the OA. They do this by increasing the length of the ciliary arrays, without affecting their width and often without increasing their number beyond the usual four. Comparison of the oral arrays over a large range of sizes has revealed: (1) that the lengths of the anterior two of three parallel arrays (membranelles) are rather tightly coordinated; (2) that the specific basal body configurations resulting from remodelling of the membranelles are only slightly affected by large changes in lengths of membranelles; and (3) that the third membranelle is restricted to a nearly constant length, except in the very largest OAs in which the structure is lengthened but interrupted by a gap in the middle. This gap may reveal the spatial extent of a putative zone of basal body regression. These phenomena are not specific to any of the genotypes utilized in this investigation; the effect of the mutations is to loosen quantitative restrictions and thus reveal underlying associations and constraints.