July 17, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication proofread by Carmen Rotte, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinay Sciences The "power plants" of living cells, the mitochondria, probably evolved through endosymbiosis: A bacterium migrated into a primordial cell and eventually developed into an organelle that provides the cell with energy, among other things. Mitochondria produce some of the proteins they need themselves—with the help of special protein factories called mitoribosomes, which consist of RNA and proteins.
Researchers in Göttingen have now provided a roadmap for how cells assemble human mitoribosomes in a modular fashion. The study is published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology . A partnership that began nearly two billion years ago still determines our lives today: A primordial cell took in a free-living bacterium as a "subtenant.
" In the course of evolution, the bacterium developed into an energy specialist: With the help of oxygen, it converted ingested food into usable energy via the so-called respiratory chain. In return, it transferred other vital functions to its host cell —and even gave up part of its genetic material, which was integrated into the host cell's genome. The former bacterium thus became a highly specialized organelle.
All cells with a.
