The genomics of symbiosis: Hosts keep the baby and the bath water

摘要

Life as we know it is the result of symbiosis. Mitochondria, the energy generators of our own bodies, are the end result of the symbiosis of a bacterium with a host eukaryote. Visible around us are the land plants that we eat to fuel our mitochondria. Land plants are the beneficiaries of a second symbiosis, that of a cyanobacterium with a mitochondriate host, a relationship that subsequently developed into the light-harvesting chloroplast.