Intracellular signaling in proto-eukaryotes evolves to alleviate regulatory conflicts of endosymbiosis.

The complex eukaryotic cell resulted from a merger between simpler prokaryotic cells, yet the role of the mitochondrial endosymbiosis with respect to other eukaryotic innovations has remained under dispute. To investigate how the regulatory challenges associated with the endosymbiotic state impacted genome and network evolution during eukaryogenesis, we study a constructive computational model where two simple cells are forced into an obligate endosymbiosis. Across multiple in silico evolutionary replicates, we observe the emergence of different mechanisms for the coordination of host and symbiont cell cycles, stabilizing the endosymbiotic relationship.

Obligate endosymbiosis enables genome expansion during eukaryogenesis.

The endosymbiosis of an alpha-proteobacterium that gave rise to mitochondria was one of the key events in eukaryogenesis. One striking outcome of eukaryogenesis was a much more complex cell with a large genome. Despite the existence of many alternative hypotheses for this and other patterns potentially related to endosymbiosis, a constructive evolutionary model in which these hypotheses can be studied is still lacking.

Integrating Phylogenetics With Intron Positions Illuminates the Origin of the Complex Spliceosome.

Eukaryotic genes are characterized by the presence of introns that are removed from pre-mRNA by a spliceosome. This ribonucleoprotein complex is comprised of multiple RNA molecules and over a hundred proteins, which makes it one of the most complex molecular machines that originated during the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition. Previous works have established that these introns and the spliceosomal core originated from self-splicing introns in prokaryotes.

Evolution of Complex Regulation for Cell-Cycle Control.

Many questions remain about the interplay between adaptive and neutral processes leading to genome expansion and the evolution of cellular complexity. Genome size appears to be tightly linked to the size of the regulatory repertoire of cells (van Nimwegen E. 2003.

Recurrent sequence evolution after independent gene duplication.

Background: Convergent and parallel evolution provide unique insights into the mechanisms of natural selection. Some of the most striking convergent and parallel (collectively recurrent) amino acid substitutions in proteins are adaptive, but there are also many that are selectively neutral. Accordingly, genome-wide assessment has shown that recurrent sequence evolution in orthologs is chiefly explained by nearly neutral evolution.

Evolutionary Conflict Leads to Innovation: Symmetry Breaking in a Spatial Model of RNA-Like Replicators.

Molecules that replicate in trans are vulnerable to evolutionary extinction because they decrease the catalysis of replication to become more available as a template for replication. This problem can be alleviated with higher-level selection that clusters molecules of the same phenotype, favouring those groups that contain more catalysis. Here, we study a simple replicator model with implicit higher-level selection through space.