Ultrastructural study of an endosymbiotic alga and its host ciliate stentor niger

ABSTRACT Stentor niger collected in the suburbs of Hiroshima contained in its cytoplasm several hundreds of endosymbiotic algae and innumerable brownish pigment granules. The body of the ciliate was dark due to a mixture of the green endosymbiotic algae and brown pigment granules. The algae belonged to the genus Chlorella; each was enclosed in a perialgal vacuole and dispersed uniformly in the host cytoplasm from the myoneme layer inward to the center of the ciliate. The cell wall and plasma membrane of the alga enclosed a nucleus, chloroplast, mitochondrion, Golgi complex, accumulation bodies, myelinated vesicles, and many ribosomes. The chloroplast occupied more than half of the volume of the alga and contained a conspicuous pyrenoid. Algal multiplication occurred by two successive divisions of an alga, leading to four autospores within a perialgal vacuole; the walls of the vacuole invaginated to separate the autospores each into its own vacuole. Three types of pigment granules were scattered uniformly throughout the cytoplasm of the ciliate. The ultrastructure of the membranellar region, somatic cortex, and macro‐ and micronucleus of the ciliate are also described.