Evolution of a novel organelle in Animalia
Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - 06:02
in Biology & Nature
Mitochondria and chloroplasts are descendants of bacteria that were engulfed by ancient unicellular organisms more than a billion years ago. During their evolution, many genes were transferred from ancestral organelles and other bacteria to the host genome. This process required incorporating intact genes into the host genome, acquiring the expression signals that enable their transcription in eukaryotic hosts, and evolving a targeting system to transport and import their protein products into the endosymbiotic organelles.