Abstract
It has been hypothesized that mitochondria evolved from a bacterial ancestor that initially became established in an archaeal host cell as an endosymbiont. Here we model this first stage of mitochondrial evolution by engineering endosymbiosis between Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae An ADP/ATP translocase-expressing E. coli provided ATP to a respiration-deficient cox2 yeast mutant and enabled growth of a yeast-E. coli chimera on a nonfermentable carbon source. In a reciprocal fashion, yeast provided thiamin to an endosymbiotic E. coli thiamin auxotroph. Expression of several SNARE-like proteins in E. coli was also required, likely to block lysosomal degradation of intracellular bacteria. This chimeric system was stable for more than 40 doublings, and GFP-expressing E. coli endosymbionts could be observed in the yeast by fluorescence microscopy and X-ray tomography. This readily manipulated system should allow experimental delineation of host-endosymbiont adaptations that occurred during evolution of the current, highly reduced mitochondrial genome.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 11796-11801 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 115 |
Issue number | 46 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 13 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- ADP/ATP translocase
- endosymbiotic theory
- evolution
- mitochondria
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General