On the bacterial ancestry of mitochondria: new insights with triangulated approaches

2022/05/16 by Michelle Degli Esposti, Otto Geiger, Alejandro Sánchez‐Flores +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology #Mitochondrial Function and Pathology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/2022.05.15.491939

openalex publication_date 2022/05/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14

Abstract

ABSTRACT We breathe at the molecular level when mitochondria in our cells consume oxygen to extract energy from nutrients. Mitochondria are characteristic cellular organelles that derive from aerobic bacteria similar to some of those thriving in the oceans nowadays. These organelles carry out most metabolic pathways in eukaryotic cells. The precise bacterial origin of mitochondria and, consequently, the metabolic ancestry of our cells remains controversial - despite the vast genomic information that is now available. Here we triangulate across multiple phylogenomic and molecular approaches to pinpoint the most likely living relatives of the ancestral bacteria from which mitochondria originated.

Citations

• Protein Signatures Distinctive of Alpha Proteobacteria and Its Subgroups and a Model for α –Proteobacterial Evolution
• Triangulation in aetiological epidemiology
• Robust research needs many lines of evidence
• Site-and-branch-heterogeneous analyses of an expanded dataset favour mitochondria as sister to known Alphaproteobacteria

Cited by

• Mitochondria [wikipedia]