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Cited by 135Protist diversity and phylogenyOrigins and Evolution of LifeEvolution and Genetic Dynamics

Open Questions on the Origin of Eukaryotes

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López-García, Purificación, Moreira, David·2015·Trends in Ecology & Evolution
DOI 10.1016/j.tree.2015.09.005PMC PMC4640172
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Abstract

Despite recent progress, the origin of the eukaryotic cell remains enigmatic. It is now known that the last eukaryotic common ancestor was complex and that endosymbiosis played a crucial role in eukaryogenesis at least via the acquisition of the alphaproteobacterial ancestor of mitochondria. However, the nature of the mitochondrial host is controversial, although the recent discovery of an archaeal lineage phylogenetically close to eukaryotes reinforces models proposing archaea-derived hosts. We argue that, in addition to improved phylogenomic analyses with more comprehensive taxon sampling to pinpoint the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes, determining plausible mechanisms and selective forces at the origin of key eukaryotic features, such as the nucleus or the bacterial-like eukaryotic membrane system, is essential to constrain existing models.

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  • Eukaryotes likely originated from a symbiosis between an archaeal host and a bacterial endosymbiont.

    “The latter view is based on the notion that Eukaryotes likely originated from a symbiosis between an archaeal host and a bacterial endosymbiont (e.g.reviewed in Lopez-Garcia and Moreira 2015: Martin et al. 2015), a scenario that has gained recent support from the discovery of the Asgard archaea, which form a monophyletic group with Eukaryotes in phylogenetic analyses and encode various eukaryotic”

    From The Emergence of Life (2019) · cites this paper as Lopez-Garcia and Moreira 2015

    The “Symbiogenetic models” section describes an increasingly popular hypothesis in which eukaryotes arose through symbiosis between an archaeal host and a bacterial endosymbiont. But the paper calls that direct-origin scenario plausible rather than likely; “Mitochondria: early or late?” says a different scenario, with mitochondrial incorporation later, seemed favored. The claim overstates how firmly the review endorses the proposed timing of the symbiosis. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Authors
López-García, P., & Moreira, D.
Affiliations
Université Paris-Sud (FR)
ORCID
Moreira, David
Venue
Trends in Ecology & Evolution
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-11
Volume
30
Issue
11
Pages
697-708
ISSN
0169-5347 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.tree.2015.09.005
PMC
PMC4640172
OpenAlex
W1908213546
Cited by
135
References
13
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2
FWCI
1.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Trends in Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protist diversity and phylogeny
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
Keywords
eukaryotic origin, endosymbiosis, mitochondrial origin, last eukaryotic common ancestor, phylogenomics
MeSH terms
Archaea, Eukaryotic Cells, Biological Evolution, Mitochondria, Phylogeny, Symbiosis, Eukaryota

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