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When two Tetrahymena cells of different mating type couple, the germline micronucleus in each cell undergoes meiosis. This results in two haploid gametic pronuclei in each partner cell; the cells exchange gametic pronuclei which then fuse and give rise to a new somatic macronucleus in each progeny cell.
Confocal immunofluorescence images of meiosis in Tetrahymena cells. Upper left: metaphase I. Upper right: “crescent” stage prophase I. Lower left: anaphase II. Lower right: late anaphase II. In green are the large macronuclei and the smaller micronuclei which undergo meiosis; DNA is stained with Sytox™. In red are the microtubules stained with antibodies to tubulin. Photographs by Amy Walanski and David Asai.	Confocal immunofluorescence image of conjugating Tetrahymena cells. Shown is an immunofluorescence image of a pair of mating cells in prophase I. In green are the microtubules; in blue are the nuclei. This is a projection of optical sections captured with our Zeiss LSM510 confocal laser scanning microscope.