Lipids of Ciliary and Flagellar Membranes

Abstract

The lipids of isolated cilia and flagella have been analyzed in only a few organisms. There is a substantial number of reports on the ciliary lipids of Tetrahymena. Vast differences in proteins and lipids exist between strains formerly grouped together as T. pyriformis. Thompson’s and Nozawa’s laboratories did their earlier work mainly with T. pyriformis amicronucleate strains W, E, or GL or the sexual strain, formerly known as WH-14 or mating type II, variety 1 and now designated as T. thermophila. These investigators have used the extremely thermotolerant strain, NT-1, in most of their recent studies. Most studies done by Conner and his colleagues have been on the amicronucleate strain, T. pyriformis W. These major contributors to our current understanding of Tetrahymena ciliary membrane lipids have done some of their analyses on isolated membrane preparations; all other workers have analyzed the entire organelle. Smith et al. (1970) and Kennedy and Thompson (1970) were the first to report on lipids of isolated cilia using T. thermophila and T. pyriformis E, respectively. These initial studies were followed by a report on T. thermophila by Jonah and Erwin (1971) who provided more detailed analyses of ciliary lipids, including fatty acid data. Thus, in addition to differences in analytical techniques, species and strain differences must be taken into consideration when apparent discrepancies occur in the Tetrahymena lipid literature