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An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes

Two major obstacles hinder the application of evolutionary theory to the origin of eukaryotes. The first is more apparent than real—the endosymbiosis that led to the mitochondrion is often described as “non-Darwinian” because it deviates from the incremental evolution championed by the modern synthe...

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Autor principal: Blackstone, Neil W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4929532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27128953
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology5020018
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author Blackstone, Neil W.
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description Two major obstacles hinder the application of evolutionary theory to the origin of eukaryotes. The first is more apparent than real—the endosymbiosis that led to the mitochondrion is often described as “non-Darwinian” because it deviates from the incremental evolution championed by the modern synthesis. Nevertheless, endosymbiosis can be accommodated by a multi-level generalization of evolutionary theory, which Darwin himself pioneered. The second obstacle is more serious—all of the major features of eukaryotes were likely present in the last eukaryotic common ancestor thus rendering comparative methods ineffective. In addition to a multi-level theory, the development of rigorous, sequence-based phylogenetic and comparative methods represents the greatest achievement of modern evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, the rapid evolution of major features in the eukaryotic stem group requires the consideration of an alternative framework. Such a framework, based on the contingent nature of these evolutionary events, is developed and illustrated with three examples: the putative intron proliferation leading to the nucleus and the cell cycle; conflict and cooperation in the origin of eukaryotic bioenergetics; and the inter-relationship between aerobic metabolism, sterol synthesis, membranes, and sex. The modern synthesis thus provides sufficient scope to develop an evolutionary framework to understand the origin of eukaryotes.
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spelling pubmed-49295322016-07-07 An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes Blackstone, Neil W. Biology (Basel) Review Two major obstacles hinder the application of evolutionary theory to the origin of eukaryotes. The first is more apparent than real—the endosymbiosis that led to the mitochondrion is often described as “non-Darwinian” because it deviates from the incremental evolution championed by the modern synthesis. Nevertheless, endosymbiosis can be accommodated by a multi-level generalization of evolutionary theory, which Darwin himself pioneered. The second obstacle is more serious—all of the major features of eukaryotes were likely present in the last eukaryotic common ancestor thus rendering comparative methods ineffective. In addition to a multi-level theory, the development of rigorous, sequence-based phylogenetic and comparative methods represents the greatest achievement of modern evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, the rapid evolution of major features in the eukaryotic stem group requires the consideration of an alternative framework. Such a framework, based on the contingent nature of these evolutionary events, is developed and illustrated with three examples: the putative intron proliferation leading to the nucleus and the cell cycle; conflict and cooperation in the origin of eukaryotic bioenergetics; and the inter-relationship between aerobic metabolism, sterol synthesis, membranes, and sex. The modern synthesis thus provides sufficient scope to develop an evolutionary framework to understand the origin of eukaryotes. MDPI 2016-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4929532/ /pubmed/27128953 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology5020018 Text en © 2016 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Blackstone, Neil W.
An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title_full An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title_fullStr An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title_full_unstemmed An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title_short An Evolutionary Framework for Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes
title_sort evolutionary framework for understanding the origin of eukaryotes
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4929532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27128953
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology5020018
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