Are sugar residues involved in the specific cell recognition of mating in Paramecium?

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
To characterize the chemical nature of the substances responsible for the agglutinative mating reaction in Paramecium caudatum, the effects of a variety of reagents on the mating activity of detached cilia were studied quantitatively. Treatment of mating‐reactive cilia with sodium periodate (NaIO4) markedly decreases mating activity of the cilia. However, the addition of sodium aspartic acid or pre‐treatment with 5% formalin inhibits the NaIO4‐inactivation. This result indicates that the oxidation of some surface components of cilia other than the mating substances is responsible for this inactivation. Five kinds of glycosidases, α‐mannosidase, α‐L‐fucosidase, β‐galactosidase, β‐glucosidase and neuraminidase, have no demonstrable effect on the mating acitivity of the cilia. On the other hand, trypsin destroys the mating activity even in a concentration as low as 0.00001%. These results strongly suggest that no sugar moiety is directly involved in the mating agglutination in P. caudatum.