How is this possible? Mysterious microbe is missing mitochondria
Imagine meeting another human who lacks a heart, lungs or some other crucial organ, and yet seems to be functioning completely normally. An international team of scientists has discovered the single-celled version of this conundrum: a eukaryotic microbe that has lost its mitochondrion, which scientists long thought was essential for these complex cellular organisms.
The microbe Monocercomonoides sp., described in the journal Current Biology, upends the long-held assumption that mitochondria are essential to eukaryotic cells as we know them. The findings also shed light on the evolutionary pressures that have made the partnership between cells and their mitochondria so profoundly successful – and reveal the situations when that relationship may fall apart.
The discovery showcases “an example of the amazing evolutionary plasticity of eukaryotic cells,” said first author Anna Karnkowska, a protistologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who performed the research while she was a post-doctoral fellow at Charles University in Prague.
more
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-eukaryote-microbe-missing-mitochondria-20160513-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
