News From the Field

Scientists Date Prehistoric Bacterial Invasion Still Present in Today's Cells


June 19, 2013

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How long ago did bacteria invade the one-celled ancestors of plants and animals to become energy-producing mitochondria and photosynthesizing chloroplasts? Two University of California, Berkeley, doctoral candidates developed a statistical way to analyze the variation in genes common to mitochondria, chloroplasts and the eukaryotic nucleus to more precisely date these events. They found that the cyanobacterial invasion of plants took place millions of years more recently than thought.Full Story

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University of California, Berkeley

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