Tiny unicellular #eukaryotes, big #biomaterial inspiration. Excited to share our Nature Communications study showing that tintinnid ciliates build their chemical- and heat-resistant shells from self-assembling proteins we call Tintinnidorins. doi.org/10.1038/s414... #protistsonsky 1/3

Over the last nearly 100 years, these folks have made remarkable contributions to our knowledge of the microscopic wonders, Tintinnid Ciliates! Find out about these folks: ejournals.eu/en/journal/a...

Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of: A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids. A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202... #ProtistsOnSky

We recently investigated how much and when tintinnid ciliates produce shell material during the cell cycle to construct a new shell (lorica) after division: tinyurl.com/49usp8xw We adapted a classical staining technique. Still no #UExM for tintinnids dudinlab.bsky.social‬? (wink) #protistsonsky

Tinntinid ciliates are known because of their remarkable and taxonomically relevant shells. Can you spot the #tintinnids we sampled in Villefranche-sur-Mer (visiting @tintinnman.bsky.social) among the other planktonic organisms? Do you want to know how tintinnids build their shells? #protistsonsky