... in CV function, in our case emphasizing the role of endosomal vesicle fusion machinery in the D. discoideum CV and facilitating future work to address questions regarding the deep evolution of eukaryotic organelles. References Allen , R. D. and Naitoh , Y. ( 2002 ). Osmoregulation...

... leads to dysfunction of cell osmoregulation in very hypotonic conditions. The contractile cycle is inhibited in the mutant cells with a slower rate of contractile vacuole swelling, leading to cell death. These data demonstrate a new role for six-transmembrane K + channels in contractile vacuole...

...Karin Komsic-Buchmann; Lisa Marie Stephan; Burkhard Becker Summary Contractile vacuoles (CVs) are essential for osmoregulation in many protists. To investigate the mechanism of CV function in Chlamydomonas , we isolated novel osmoregulatory mutants. Four of the isolated mutant cell lines carried...

...+ ] homeostasis. * Author for correspondence (e-mail: Eva.Ladenburger@uni-konstanz.de ) 1 6 2006 © The Company of Biologists Limited 2006 2006 Ca 2+ Calcium Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate IP 3 Osmoregulation Paramecium References Adkins, C. E. and Taylor, C. W...

... domains of living organisms indicates their early evolutionary origins. Very early on, MS channels might have evolved as cellular osmoregulators that measured small changes in the concentration of water across membranes of primordial cells such as bacteria ( Sachs, 1988 ; Kung and Saimi, 1995...

... and the membrane of the contractile vacuole complex ensure a controlled cascade of water flow through the cell that can provide for osmoregulation as well as the possible extrusion of metabolic waste by the contractile vacuole complex. Not yet understood are: (1) the mechanisms by which cytosolic water...