Anish Patel

Endosymbiotic Theory
The Endosymbiotic Theory was first proposed by former Boston University Biologist Lynn Margulis in the 1960's and officially in her 1981 book "Symbiosis in Cell Evolution". Although now accepted as a well-supported theory, both she and the theory were mocked by biologists for a number of years. However, biology can now offer an explanation for the evolution of eukaryotes. Dr. Margulis was doing research on the origin of eukaryotic cells, and she looked at all the data about prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and organelles. She proposed that the similarities between prokaryotes and organelles, together with their appearance in the fossil record, could best be explained by endosymbiosis. Symbiosis occurs when two different species benefit from living and working together. When one organism actually lives inside the other it's called endosymbiosis. The endosymbiotic theory describes how a large host cell and ingested bacteria could easily become dependent on one another for survival, resulting in a permanent relationship. Over millions of years of evolution, mitochondria and chloroplasts have become more specialized and today they cannot live outside the cell. Mitochondria developed from proteobacteria (in particular, Rickettsiales) and chloroplasts from cyanobacteria. The endosymbiotic theory consists of two types of endosymbiosis, which are primary and secondary. Primary endosymbiosis is the ingestion of a bacterium by a eukaryote, sometimes envisioned as phagocytosis. The ingested bacteria, survives on the nutrients provided by the host eukaryote cell, meaning the host and the symbiotic bacterium reproduce collaboratively. Subsequently, over generations the endosymbiotic neocytes also contain the originally ingested Figure 1 Primary Endosymbiosis bacterium. Ultimately, both the eukaryote host and the bacteria endosymbionts developed an interdependence through which both entities lost their ability to function without the other. The cyanobacteria and proteobacteria both were ingested in the same way to form chloroplasts and the mitochondrion which are currently in the eukaryote cells. Secondary endosymbiosis occurs when the product of primary endosymbiosis is itself engulfed and retained by another free living eukaryote. Secondary endosymbiosis has occurred several times and has given rise to extremely diverse groups of algae and other eukaryotes. An example of secondary endosymbiosis is the heterotrophic protist Hatena, which behaves like a predator until it ingests a

Anish Patel

green alga, which loses its flagella and cytoskeleton, while Hatena, now a host, switches to photosynthetic nutrition, gains the ability to move towards light and loses its feeding apparatus. During endosymbiosis, endosymbiotic gene transfer occurs between the bacteria and the host cell, which is the transfer of DNA, which codes for proteins, from the bacteria to the host nucleus. In mitochondria, the proteins encoded by mitochondrial DNA do not account for all of the proteins found in mitochondria. Endosymbiotic prokaryotes are believed to have relinquished certain genes to the nuclei of their host cells in the process, endosymbiotic gene transfer. For this reason, mitochondria and chloroplasts now depend on their host's DNA to direct synthesis most of their components. As I previously said, many mainstream scientists mocked Lynn Margulis; however lots have research has been collected to prove that this theory was liable, on the evolution of a eukaryote. Evidence found to support endosymbiosis includes: y Mitochondria and chloroplasts are similar in size and morphology to bacterial prokaryotic cells. y Mitochondria and chloroplasts divide by binary fission, just as bacteria do, and not by mitosis as eukaryotes do. y Mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own DNA and their own ribosomes. o The DNA of mitochondria and chloroplasts is different from that of the eukaryotic cell. Both types of organelle include DNA that is like that of prokaryotes, circular, not linear. y Organelle ribosomes are more similar in size to prokaryotic ribosomes. o Mitochondria and chloroplasts produced their own ribosomes, which have 30S and 50S subunits, and not the 40S and 60S subunits of the eukaryotic cells in which they occur. y Many antibiotics that kill or inhibit bacteria also inhibit protein synthesis of these organelles. o Antibiotics such as streptomycin block the synthesis of proteins in eubacteria, mitochondria, and chloroplasts, but not cytoplasmic protein synthesis in eukaryotes. However, with most theories there are always some problems, and there are: y Genetic analysis of small eukaryotes that lack mitochondria shows that they all still retain genes for mitochondrial proteins. This implies that all these eukaryotes once had mitochondria. y A large cell, especially one that carries out phagocytosis, has vast energetic requirements, which cannot be achieved without the internalisation of energy production. Thus implying that, for the cell to gain mitochondria, it could not have been a eukaryote, and must have been a bacterium.
Figure 2 Secondary Endosymbiosis