Unlike typical eukaryotic organisms, Tetrahymena has two nuclei — a micronucleus that
contains normal chromosomes and a macronucleus whose chromosomes are fragmented into thousands of small pieces of DNA that all encode the same ribosomal RNA gene.
The finding that
normal fertilization can result in embryos
containing cells with different parental sets of
chromosomes is a new mechanism for chimerism, which was previously thought to occur only as the result of fertilization errors, for example, the fusion of multiple sperm or eggs to form an embryo.