Exposure of the ciliate, Tetrahymena pyriformis, strain WH6, to normal human or rabbit sera or mouse ascites fluids induces the formation of large cytoplasmic bodies. By electron microscopy these (LB) are observed to be membrane-bounded structures, generally spherical and varying in size (Fig. 1), which do not resemble the food vacuoles of cells grown in proteinaceous broth. The possibility exists that the large bodies represent endocytic vacuoles containing material concentrated from the highly nutritive proteins and lipoproteins of the sera or ascites fluids. Tetrahymena mixed with bovine serum albumin or ovalbumin solutions having about the same protein concentration (7g/100 ml) as serum form endocytic vacuoles which bear little resemblance to the serum-induced LB. The albumin-induced structures (Fig. 2) are irregular in shape, rarely spherical, and have contents which vary in density and consistency. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate the sequence of events which might occur in the formation of the albumin-induced vacuoles.
