2009年2月10日的《公共科学图书馆·综合》（PLoS One）发表了题为“Microarray Analyses of Gene Expression during the Tetrahymena thermophila Life Cycle”的研究论文，该研究结果是中国科学院水生生物研究所原生动物分类与生态学科组缪炜博士和硕士生熊杰在科技部国际合作重点项目与国家自然科学基金资助下，与美国罗切斯特大学Gorovsky教授等合作完成的。
论文报道了过去两年间缪炜博士与合作者针对嗜热四膜虫构建的世界上第一个纤毛虫全基因组基因芯片分析平台。基于高通量基因表达分析技术完成了嗜热四膜虫3种典型生理或发育状态（生长、饥饿及接合生殖）共20个时期的全基因组表达数据的采集和分析，建立和发展了协同表达基因的发现等分析方法，为四膜虫功能基因组学的开展奠定了基础，被同行审稿人评价为 “a major milestone in molecular research on ciliates ”。
四膜虫（Tetrahymena）是一种营自由生活的单细胞真核生物，隶属于原生动物中的纤毛门寡毛纲膜口目，广泛分布于全球各地的淡水环境中。在过去的50年中，以四膜虫为实验对象在基础生物学研究中取得了一系列突破性的成果，如端粒与端粒酶的发现、获得诺贝尔奖的核酶发现和组蛋白翻译后修饰功能的发现等。同时，四膜虫作为第一种实现细胞同步化的真核生物可以进行无菌纯培养，而且生长快（2－2.5小时一代）；比较基因组的研究也显示嗜热四膜虫较酵母等模式生物和人类具有更高程度的功能保守性；加之四膜虫中已建立了成熟的基因操作技术。因此，四膜虫是开展真核生物基因功能研究的良好模式生物，基因芯片分析平台的建立将有力推动利用四膜虫在基因组水平开展真核生物重要代谢通路及基因调控网络的研究工作。
近日缪炜博士等人还在国内完成了多种环境激素类污染物(滴滴涕、二噁英、三丁基锡等) 和雌二醇暴露下四膜虫的基因芯片全基因组表达分析，使得水生所合作或独立完成了全世界近85%的四膜虫基因芯片实验，目前由中方负责的四膜虫基因表达数据库（Tetrahymena Gene Expression Database）的建立已经启动，旨在通过收集、提供和分享四膜虫基因芯片数据及相关分析方法和应用软件，使之成为世界四膜虫功能基因组学研究的信息中心。 （生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS One，doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004429，Wei Miao，Martin A. Gorovsky
Microarray Analyses of Gene Expression during the Tetrahymena thermophila Life Cycle
Wei Miao1,2*, Jie Xiong2, Josephine Bowen1, Wei Wang1,3, Yifan Liu4, Olga Braguinets5, Jorg Grigull6, Ronald E. Pearlman5, Eduardo Orias7, Martin A. Gorovsky1*
1 Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, United States of America, 2 State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China, 3 Institute of Biotechnology, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China, 4 Pathology Department, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, 5 Department of Biology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 6 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 7 Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America
Abstract
Background
The model eukaryote, Tetrahymena thermophila, is the first ciliated protozoan whose genome has been sequenced, enabling genome-wide analysis of gene expression.
Methodology/Principal Findings
A genome-wide microarray platform containing the predicted coding sequences (putative genes) for T. thermophila is described, validated and used to study gene expression during the three major stages of the organism's life cycle: growth, starvation and conjugation.
Conclusions/Significance
Of the ~27,000 predicted open reading frames, transcripts homologous to only ~5900 are not detectable in any of these life cycle stages, indicating that this single-celled organism does indeed contain a large number of functional genes. Transcripts from over 5000 predicted genes are expressed at levels >5× corrected background and 95 genes are expressed at >250× corrected background in all stages. Transcripts homologous to 91 predicted genes are specifically expressed and 155 more are highly up-regulated in growing cells, while 90 are specifically expressed and 616 are up-regulated during starvation. Strikingly, transcripts homologous to 1068 predicted genes are specifically expressed and 1753 are significantly up-regulated during conjugation. The patterns of gene expression during conjugation correlate well with the developmental stages of meiosis, nuclear differentiation and DNA elimination. The relationship between gene expression and chromosome fragmentation is analyzed. Genes encoding proteins known to interact or to function in complexes show similar expression patterns, indicating that co-ordinate expression with putative genes of known function can identify genes with related functions. New candidate genes associated with the RNAi-like process of DNA elimination and with meiosis are identified and the late stages of conjugation are shown to be characterized by specific expression of an unexpectedly large and diverse number of genes not involved in nuclear functions.
