Research suggests core nuclear pore elements shared by all eukaryotes
(PhysOrg.com) -- For perhaps 1.8 billion years after life first emerged on Earth, a sort of evolutionary writer`s block stalled the development of organisms more complicated than single cells. Then, a burst of experimental creativity about 1.7 billion years ago brought the cell nucleus onto the scene, stashing the cell`s genetic material inside a protective inner membrane and setting the stage for the evolution of more sophisticated creatures from yeast, say, to plants and human beings. Now research shows that one of the most basic design principles of this new eukaryotic life-form - the gatekeeper to the cell nucleus known as the nuclear pore complex - is largely shared across the most distantly related eukaryotes. Its core components likely evolved once and for all and would be found in the nuclear pore complex of what is known as the last common eukaryotic ancestor.