The intracellular cyanobacteria of Paulinella chromatophora : endosymbionts or organelles?

Endosymbiotic relationships are common across the tree of life and have had profound impacts on cellular evolution and diversity. Recent molecular investigations of the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora have raised a timely and important question: should obligatory intracellular cyanobacteria in Pauli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in microbiology (Regular ed.) 2007-07, Vol.15 (7), p.295-296
Main Authors: Bodył, Andrzej, Mackiewicz, Paweł, Stiller, John W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amoeba
Amoeba - cytology
Amoeba - microbiology
Amoeba - physiology
Animals
Biological Evolution
Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria - classification
Cyanobacteria - physiology
Cyanophyta
Internal Medicine
Organelles - classification
Organelles - physiology
Paulinella
Symbiosis - physiology
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Summary:Endosymbiotic relationships are common across the tree of life and have had profound impacts on cellular evolution and diversity. Recent molecular investigations of the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora have raised a timely and important question: should obligatory intracellular cyanobacteria in Paulinella be considered new organelles, or do plastids and mitochondria hold a unique stature in the history of endosymbiotic events? We argue that drawing a sharp distinction between these two organelles and all other endosymbionts is not supported by accumulating data, neither is it a productive framework for investigating organelle evolution.
ISSN:0966-842X
1878-4380
DOI:10.1016/j.tim.2007.05.002