Basal bodies and DNA.

The possibility that basal bodies/centrioles contain nucleic acid has been a controversial topic in cell biology for several decades. These structures are conservatively replicated, are segregated at mitosis, and play a prominent role in cytoskeletal organization; thus, some have chosen to view centrioles as autonomous, self-replicating entities, and have searched for centriole-associated DNA. Two years ago, a report suggested that a chromosome defined by a specific linkage group is located within each basal body of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas. Several recent investigations have presented new data that force a re-evaluation of that conclusion.