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Semes for analysis of evolution: de Duve's peroxisomes and Meyer's hydrogenases in the sulphurous Proterozoic eon

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 8, page 902 (2007)Cite this article

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Permanent bacterial conjugation-nucleoid membrane formation9 generated the nucleus tethered to [9(2)+2] motility organelles (such as undulipodia including cilia) and its attachment apparatus, which became the centriole–centrosome system (Mixotricha is analogous10). The intron-less eubacterial DNA (now in the nucleolinus of the nucleolus) became the centrosome–centriole DNA11. Specific centrosomal RNAs and proteins for assembly and maintenance of the centriole–centrosome system12 are discussed in Ref. 13. Redundancy reduction followed fusion. Genetic and metabolic systems acquired from intracellular motile symbionts were integrated and redeployed (comparable with what occurred in the evolution of Staurojoenina14, Peridinium balticum, Mesodinium rubrum and Hatena)15,16. Natural selection in microoxic habitats maintained heterotrophic chimaeras.

Information-molecule loss from centriole-kinetosomes (such as gene loss in plastids and mitochondria) occurred in the sulphurous Proterozoic eon (2500–541 million years ago17) during which time peroxisomes were acquired. Besides peroxisomes, organelles that are probably of bacterial origin that continued the trend of loss of genes to the nucleus until completion include some hydrogenosomes, γ-particles of Blastocladiella, and mitosomes.

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Figure 1: Did this cell originate from an archaebacterium?
Figure 2

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  1. Department of Geosciences, Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 01003, Massachussetts, USA

    Lynn Margulis, Michael Chapman & Michael F. Dolan

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  1. Lynn Margulis
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Correspondence to Lynn Margulis.

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Margulis, L., Chapman, M. & Dolan, M. Semes for analysis of evolution: de Duve's peroxisomes and Meyer's hydrogenases in the sulphurous Proterozoic eon. Nat Rev Genet 8, 902 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2071-c1

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