Core Nuclear Pore Elements Likely Shared By All Eukaryotes
Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 15:21
in Physics & Chemistry
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.