Transcriptomic analyses of putative sexual stages of Acantharia (Radiolaria, Rhizaria)

In total, 10 acantharian cells were studied: 4 vegetative life stages, 2 cysts, 1 granular amoeba stage and 3 batches of swarmers each obtained from 3 different vegetative cells. The cyst, granular amoeba and swarmer stages are putative sexual life stages, among which swarmers were hypothesized to be gametes. To these samples were added 2 foraminiferan confirmed sexual stages, as reference. Each sample corresponds to one cell and in the case of swarmers, which are small bi-flagellated cells, one sample corresponds to the pool of swarmers produced by one cell. The cells were sampled with net tows and isolated manually under the microscope. Each sample/cell is at the origin of one single-cell transcriptome (again in the case of swarmers, the single-cell transcriptome was generated from one sample including many swarmers), so it total 8 samples were sequenced and assembled into 8 single-cell transcriptomes.