30 ms·

If you are interested in this, you might also be interested in "promoter genes" which tend to be destructive to the organism they are part of, but which are als

• dfsegoat 8y ago
  Indeed. It is this sort of "worm-like" or "near-virus" -like behavior of these genes (transposons, promoters, etc) that made me decide to split the difference between comp sci and molecular biology (bioinformatics) as an undergrad. Nevermind the mitochondria - the powerhouse of our cells - which is basically believed to be a bacterial companion that our single celled ancestors integrated so tightly with - that it became part of our genome [1]. 1 - https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-origin-of-mitochondria-14232356 https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-origin-of-mito...
  • mallomarmeasle 8y ago
    Mitochondria are indeed thought to have arisen from incorporation of free-living organisms, but interestingly they mostly retain their own replicating DNA that is not incorporated into our genome [1]. 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA