Abstract
Forming cysts is a common and important bionomic strategy for microorganisms to persist in harsh environments. In ciliated protists, many species have been reported to form cysts when facing unfavorable conditions. Despite traditional studies on the morphological features of cysts and the chemical composition of cyst wall, recent research has focused more on the molecular mechanisms of encystment. The present work reviews studies on developmental features and molecular information of resting cysts in ciliates, and pays more attention to the following questions: what are the inducing factors of encystment and excystment? How does the cell change morphologically during these dynamic processes? And what molecular mechanisms underlie those changes? We also present and summarize the characteristics of cysts from diverse ciliate lineages in a phylogenetic framework, aiming to provide new perspectives for studies on adaptive evolution of unicellular eukaryotes.
Highlights
Cyst formation, which is common in microbial organisms, is considered as an adaptive strategy against adverse environmental conditions (Corliss and Esser, 1974)
We largely focus on resting cysts and choose “cyst” as the general term, which consists of resting cysts, reproductive cysts, digestive cysts, etc
We aim to summarize the basic structure, inducing factors, structural changes and responding molecular mechanisms in resting cysts
Summary
Cyst formation, which is common in microbial organisms, is considered as an adaptive strategy against adverse environmental conditions (Corliss and Esser, 1974). The expression level of related proteins might be upregulated or down-regulated, promoting cells to form cysts or to detach from the CW during excystment as they return to suitable environments (Chen et al, 2014; Gao et al, 2015).
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