Séminaire IBS : Origin and evolution of the eukaryotic cell : the emergence of cooperation, competition and altruisme

Par Dr Juan-Carlos Fontecilla-Camps (IBS/ Groupe Métalloprotéines)

The evolutionary transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes most likely involved the fusion of an archeon with a bacterium. One important consequence of this fusion was an increase in mean gene length in protists to about 1500 nucleotides, and corresponding 500 amino acids-long proteins. The subsequent evolution of plants and metazoans resulted in a lengthening of their genes (to over 10,000 nucleotides per gene in vertebrates). However, the coded proteins remained at an average length of also about 500 amino acids. The significance of the difference in gene length but constant protein size has been the subject of some controversy.

A second result of the evolutionary transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes was the emergence of competition, cooperation and even altruism, between cells. These interactions cover a large spectrum going from single-cell organisms to mammals like us. Indeed, recent studies have shown that cancer cells do collaborate during tumor growth.

These two subjects will be discussed during the seminar.