Previous analyses of the Giardia genome exposed numerous genes required for meiosis, suggesting that sexual reproduction is occurring in this early-diverging eukaryote. A new study now uncovers direct genetic evidence for recombination in Giardia populations.

Translation is a core cellular process carried out by a highly conserved macromolecular machine, the ribosome. There has been remarkable evolutionary adaptation of this machine through the addition of eukaryote-specific ribosomal proteins whose individual effects on ribosome function are largely unknown. Here we show that eukaryote-specific Asc1/RACK1 is required for efficient translation of mR...

Ribosomes translate genetic information encoded by messenger RNA into proteins. Many aspects of translation and its regulation are specific to eukaryotes, whose ribosomes are much larger and intricate than their bacterial counterparts. We report the crystal structure of the 80S ribosome from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae--including nearly all ribosomal RNA bases and protein side chains as ...

Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia and Chlamydia are prokaryotic phyla, sometimes grouped together as the PVC superphylum of eubacteria. Some PVC species possess interesting attributes, in particular, internal membranes that superficially resemble eukaryotic endomembranes. Some biologists now claim that PVC bacteria are nucleus-bearing prokaryotes and are considered evolutionary intermediates in t...

The difficulties in performing experimental studies related to diseases of the human brain have fostered a range disease models from highly expensive and complex animal simple, robust, unicellular yeast models. Yeast been used numerous understand Alzheimer’s (AD) pathogenesis search for drugs targeting AD. Thanks conservation fundamental eukaryotic processes including ageing availability approp...

Nucleotide sequencing of genomic data is an important step towards building understanding of gene expression. Current limitations in sequencing limit the number of base pairs that can be processed to only several hundred at a time. Consequently, these sequenced substrings need to be assembled into the overall genome. Furthermore, the existence of insertions, deletions and substitutions can comp...

Resolving the structure of the eukaryotic tree of life remains one of the most important and challenging tasks facing biologists. The notion of six eukaryotic 'supergroups' has recently gained some acceptance, and several papers in 2007 suggest that resolution of higher taxonomic levels is possible. However, in organisms that acquired photosynthesis via secondary (i.e. eukaryote-eukaryote) endo...

An archaeal origin of eukaryotes is often equated with the engulfment of the bacterial ancestor of mitochondria by an archaeon. Such an event is problematic in that it is not supported by archaeal cell biology. We show that placing phylogenetic results within a stem-and-crown framework eliminates such incompatibilities, and that an archaeal origin for eukaryotes (as suggested from recent phylog...

The initiator tRNA, methionyl-tRNA(i) (Met), of yeast and wheat germ forms relatively unstable ternary complexes with their corresponding elongation factors T and GTP. Such complexes can be demonstrated only with fast separation techniques such as Sephadex G-50 and Millipore filtration, but not with the slow Sephadex G-100 method, although both techniques yield stable ternary complexes with all...

Due to their involvement in the energy metabolism, mitochondria are essential for most eukaryotic cells. Microbial eukaryotes living in low oxygen environments possess reduced forms of mitochondria, namely mitochondrion-related organelles (MROs). These do not produce ATP by oxidative phosphorylation on their membranes and some do not produce ATP at all. Still, they are indispensable because of ...