[mad librettist]

I was just reading a fascinating article on the origins of the chloroplast. Apparently it did not evolve through simple selection and mutation, but rather via horizontal gene transfer and symbiosis. The original "wild" cyanobacteria was in effect domesticated by a single alga to achieve heterotrophy. A third entity, probably a parasite similar to legionella, allowed the pair to become a single organism able to reproduce.

This would essentially make every plant a chimera cobbled together from genes of various species!


Since I was a kid, I always had a sneaking suspicion that infectious diseases are left over from a time when the separation between organisms was not so distinct, and that the pathogens are left over vehicles for trading genes.

[fungzyme]

You might want to check your mitochondria - they're not really yours, you know...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory

[mad librettist]

here is the artice

By studying the genetics of a glaucophyte—one of a group of just 13 unique microscopic freshwater blue-green algae, sometimes called "living fossils"—an international consortium of scientists led by molecular bioscientist Dana Price of Rutgers University, has elucidated the evolutionary history of plants. The glaucophyte Cyanophora paradoxa still retains a less domesticated version of this original cyanobacteria than most other plants.

According to the analysis of C. paradoxa's genome of roughly 70 million base pairs, this capture must have occurred only once because most modern plants share the genes that make the merger of photosynthesizer and larger host cell possible. That union required cooperation not just from the original host and the formerly free-ranging photosynthesizer but also, apparently, from a bacterial parasite. Chlamydia-like cells, such as Legionella (which includes the species that causes Legionnaire's disease), provided the genes that enable the ferrying of food from domesticated cyanobacteria, now known as plastids, or chloroplasts, to the host cell.

[lost in a sea]

at some point one photosynthesising single celled organism invaded another that couldnt photosynthesise and became what we now know as chloroplasts within the cell obviously through a symbiotic relationship,, the same is true for mitochondria, they have their own mdna,, and then eukaryotes were "born" with their membrane bound internal organelles,,

all probably originated with one early algal cell,,

[mad librettist]

pretty fucking cool.

I just read an article on a new paper that is suggesting that life came not from the oceans, but from freshwater pools and then migrated to the primordial seas.

[lost in a sea]

well i dont know why scientists concern themselves with things they can only really speculate about,, that is not supposed to be their jobs,,

it wont help anything/anyone guessing where life started,, its interesting obviously but irrelevent to whats important, and that is what we have here today in the present,,

they will still be flip flopping on those sorts of theories in 50 years time,,

quite frankly it is ridiculous, and is what makes science increasingly a religion or cult,,,

Seriously....? Wow. I could NOT disagree with you more.

[Crusader Rabbit]

Originally Posted by fungzyme

You might want to check your mitochondria - they're not really yours, you know...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory

It bothers me sometimes to think that the tails on all those little sperm were originally independent spirochetes. Makes me shudder just to think of it.

[paulo73]

Inspiring stuff.
From time to time i end up in this pipe dream, what if animals, human race included, managed to upgrade their photosynthesis processes?!
Can you guys imagine the range of possibilities?!
Thanks for sharing the article Mad Librettist