Journal
ACTA SOCIETATIS BOTANICORUM POLONIAE
Volume 83, Issue 4, Pages 387-397Publisher
POLSKIE TOWARZYSTWO BOTANICZNE
DOI: 10.5586/asbp.2014.049
Keywords
organellogenesis; plastid evolution; endosymbiosis; cyanobacterium; photosynthesis; chromatophore; protein targeting; Rhizaria
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [1090/1-1]
- Div Of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1157627] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Eukaryotes co-opted photosynthetic carbon fixation from prokaryotes by engulfing a cyanobacterium and stably integrating it as a photosynthetic organelle (plastid) in a process known as primary endosymbiosis. The sheer complexity of interactions between a plastid and the surrounding cell that started to evolve over 1 billion years ago, make it challenging to reconstruct intermediate steps in organelle evolution by studying extant plastids. Recently, the photosynthetic amoeba Paulinella chromatophora was identified as a much sought-after intermediate stage in the evolution of a photosynthetic organelle. This article reviews the current knowledge on this unique organism. In particular it describes how the interplay of reductive genome evolution, gene transfers, and trafficking of host-encoded proteins into the cyanobacterial endosymbiont contributed to transform the symbiont into a nascent photosynthetic organelle. Together with recent results from various other endosymbiotic associations a picture emerges that lets the targeting of host-encoded proteins into bacterial endosymbionts appear as an early step in the establishment of an endosymbiotic relationship that enables the host to gain control over the endosymbiont.
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