Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Dey G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4917890 | biostudies-other | 2016 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Dey Gautam G Thattai Mukund M Baum Buzz B
Trends in cell biology 20160616 7
If eukaryotes arose through a merger between archaea and bacteria, what did the first true eukaryotic cell look like? A major step toward an answer came with the discovery of Lokiarchaeum, an archaeon whose genome encodes small GTPases related to those used by eukaryotes to regulate membrane traffic. Although 'Loki' cells have yet to be seen, their existence has prompted the suggestion that the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes engulfed the future mitochondrion by phagocytosis. We propose instead ...[more]