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Evidence That The Synchronized Production Of New Basal Bodies Is Not Associated With Dna Synthesis In Stentor Coeruleus, K. B. Younger, S. Banerjee, J. K. Kelleher, M. Winston, Lynn Margulis

Lynn Margulis (1938 - 2011)

Stentors were induced to produce synchronously thousands of new ciliated oral membranellar band basal bodies in less than 3 h. DNA synthesis does not accompany this process, as determined by [3H]thymidine incorporation into isolated bands and by sensitivity to DNA synthesis inhibitors (mitomycin C, ethidium bromide, cytosine arabinoside and hydroxyurea). Yet DNA could be detected in the cortex and the band at basal body sites by autoradiography. Since [3H]thymidine incorporation into membranellar band was eliminated in concentrations of ethidium bromide that had no effect on basal body formation, the previous reports of ciliate kinetosomal (basal body) DNA are interpreted as …