Exploring the Effects of Environmental Temperature on CDC-7 Expression in T. thermophila

Abstract

Tetrahymena thermophila are unicellular eukaryotes with a remarkably large genome: over 27,000 genes. One important aspect of studying the Tetrahymena genome is identifying and understanding what factors influence gene expression. This study examined the effects of temperature on the expression of CDC-7, a cell division control gene. We subjected Tetrahymena cultures to increased temperature and hypothesized such treatments would induce cell division and increase CDC-7 expression. Gene expression levels were measured via semi-quantitative PCR analysis after an acute heat treatment.