Cell complexity: a new book (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 17, 2014, 15:58 (3411 days ago) @ David Turell

Another website with the same story:-http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/41511/title/The-Cellular-Revolution/-"When and precisely how the myriad internal structures that define the eukaryotic cell itself arose from simpler prokaryotic forms is much less obvious. The traditional view is that the nucleus, internal cytoskeleton, and other complex features arose in a stepwise fashion before the engulfment of the bacterium that was to become the mitochondrion. An increasingly popular alternative is that eukaryotic cellular complexity arose contemporaneously with the mitochondrion, powered by its novel metabolic capacities.-"Which of these two scenarios is closer to the truth is not yet clear. What we know is that endosymbiosis has had a profound impact on the course of evolution. Complex cells probably wouldn't have evolved without it; multicellular animals could not have arisen without the oxygen liberated by algal chloroplasts; and we wouldn't be here to ask big questions of the world around us."