A scaffold for basal body patterning revealed by a monoclonal antibody in the hypotrich ciliate Paraurostyla weissei.

In the hypotrich ciliate Paraurostyla weissei, the infraciliature consists of basal bodies on which cilia are anchored together with associated dense material and microtubular rootlets. This is renewed at each morphogenesis, which occurs both in the fully differentiated cell and in a transient dedifferentiated stage, the zygocyst. In both situations, the cell must reconstitute its typical ciliature by properly patterning its basal bodies. Insights into these morphogenetic processes were obtained through an immunocytochemical study using an antipericentriolar material antibody displaying remarkable properties. In Paraurostyla, this antibody decorates the electron-dense material associated with the basal bodies in the interphase cell (as it does with centrosomes on metazoan cells) but, during morphogenesis, the antibody decorates a transient system of tracks which appear prior to basal body patterning and along which basal bodies will later be distributed. In all cases, tracks are initiated close to parental organelles and then elongate to form a system linking the anlagen together during their migration. During zygocyst morphogenesis, they extend along three main cellular meridians. As this antibody decorates an antigen associated with early steps of morphogenesis, it visualizes a proteinaceous system upstream to basal body patterning and provides a structural continuity between parental and newly assembled basal body systems.