Publications

surface bacteria of streblomastix strix are sensory symbionts.	streblomastix strix, a protist living in the hindguts of zootermopsis sp. (termites) is covered with pseudomonad-like rod-shaped bacteria. these bacteria were demonstrated to be sensory (chemotactic) symbionts for s. strix. s. strix moved toward a source of sodium acetate, a presumed food molecule, when its bacteria were intact. if the bacteria were removed by antibiotic (carbenecillin) treatment, s. strix was unable to orient efficiently in a sodium acetate gradient. the mechanism of this inter ...	1993	8155850
characterisation of a non-canonical genetic code in the oxymonad streblomastix strix.	the genetic code is one of the most highly conserved characters in living organisms. only a small number of genomes have evolved slight variations on the code, and these non-canonical codes are instrumental in understanding the selective pressures maintaining the code. here, we describe a new case of a non-canonical genetic code from the oxymonad flagellate streblomastix strix. we have sequenced four protein-coding genes from s.strix and found that the canonical stop codons taa and tag encode th ...	2003	12595248
symbiotic innovation in the oxymonad streblomastix strix.	streblomastix strix is an enigmatic oxymonad found exclusively in the hindgut of the damp-wood termite zootermopsis. streblomastix has a number of unusual morphological characters and forms a complex but poorly understood symbiosis with epibiotic bacteria. here we described the ultrastructure of s. strix, with emphasis on the axial cytoskeleton and cell-cell associations, in its normal state and when treated with antibiotics. in untreated cells, epibiotic bacteria were orderly arranged end-to-en ...	2004	15218697
pyruvate-phosphate dikinase of oxymonads and parabasalia and the evolution of pyrophosphate-dependent glycolysis in anaerobic eukaryotes.	in pyrophosphate-dependent glycolysis, the atp/adp-dependent enzymes phosphofructokinase (pfk) and pyruvate kinase are replaced by the pyrophosphate-dependent pfk and pyruvate phosphate dikinase (ppdk), respectively. this variant of glycolysis is widespread among bacteria, but it also occurs in a few parasitic anaerobic eukaryotes such as giardia and entamoeba spp. we sequenced two genes for ppdk from the amitochondriate oxymonad streblomastix strix and found evidence for ppdk in trichomonas vag ...	2006	16400177
a high density of ancient spliceosomal introns in oxymonad excavates.	certain eukaryotic genomes, such as those of the amitochondriate parasites giardia and trichomonas, have very low intron densities, so low that canonical spliceosomal introns have only recently been discovered through genome sequencing. these organisms were formerly thought to be ancient eukaryotes that diverged before introns originated, or at least became common. now however, they are thought to be members of a supergroup known as excavates, whose members generally appear to have low densities ...	2006	16638131