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Nature | News & Views
Evolution: Mitochondria in the second act
- Journal name:
- Nature
- Volume:
- 531,
- Pages:
- 39–40
- Date published:
- DOI:
- doi:10.1038/nature16876
- Published online
A large phylogenomics study reveals that the symbiotic event that led to the emergence of organelles known as mitochondria may have occurred later in the evolution of complex cells than was thought. See Letter p.101
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Report this comment #67697
Perhaps mitochrondria were originally parasitic and took over eukaryotic cells the way malarial sporozoa take over vertebrate erythrocytes. Mammalian erythrocytes have no nuclei or mitochondria in their adult stage, whereas erythrocytes of birds, reptiles, and amphibians do. So malaria might make an interesting comparative model for the evolution of eukaryotic mitochrondria.