Dr. Mark van der Giezen, Biosciences, University of Exeter
Monday 16th June, 4.00 p.m., Stacey Lecture Theatre 1
Mitochondria are the main of sites of ATP generation in eukaryotes. These organelles are derived from a bacterial endosymbiont that entered a host cell over 1.5 billion years ago. Comparative genetics has made it clear that the mitochondrion is monophyletic in origin. Therefore, the mitochondrial endosymbiont evolved independently in various aerobic and anaerobic lineages. This has resulted in an assemblage of heterogeneous organelle variants including classic text-book mitochondria, hydrogenosomes and mitosomes. Recently, studies investigating less well-studied eukaryotic groups have resulted in the realisation that mitochondrial diversity is even more fluid than previously thought. In this talk I will provide an overview of the field of mitochondrial evolution using examples of the cell biological and biochemical variety found in various anaerobic microbial eukaryotes, both free-living as well as pathogenic.