Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 365, Issue 1541, Pages 799-817Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0167
Keywords
mitochondria; protein import; tRNA import; mitosomes; hydrogenosomes
Categories
Funding
- Swiss National Foundation [31003A_121937]
- Australian Research Council
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [31003A_121937] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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All eukaryotes require mitochondria for survival and growth. The origin of mitochondria can be traced down to a single endosymbiotic event between two probably prokaryotic organisms. Subsequent evolution has left mitochondria a collection of heterogeneous organelle variants. Most of these variants have retained their own genome and translation system. In hydrogenosomes and mitosomes, however, the entire genome was lost. All types of mitochondria import most of their proteome from the cytosol, irrespective of whether they have a genome or not. Moreover, in most eukaryotes, a variable number of tRNAs that are required for mitochondrial translation are also imported. Thus, import of macromolecules, both proteins and tRNA, is essential for mitochondrial biogenesis. Here, we review what is known about the evolutionary history of the two processes using a recently revised eukaryotic phylogeny as a framework. We discuss how the processes of protein import and tRNA import relate to each other in an evolutionary context.
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