ENDOSYMBIOTIC THEORY

Endosymbiotic Theory

ENDO - SYM - BIO - TIC

“within” or being “life” or what does it

“inside” together “living” characterized
 Endosymbiotic Theory

The earliest living neighbors on our planet were all single-celled,

prokaryotes.

Some of the neighboring prokaryotes joined and began living together

as one organism, one inside the other.

This symbiotic relationship was so successful that it led to the

evolution of many of the life forms on our planet, including humans.
 Endosymbiotic Theory
This theory explains the origin of
eukaryotic cells.

Mitochondria and chloroplasts were

thought to have been free- living
prokaryotic cells.

These structures were taken in by a

eukaryotic cell, became useful to the
cell metabolism and were retained as
organelles.
When the larger cell that had engulfed the smaller cells went to
divide, copies of the smaller prokaryotes inside were made and
passed down to the daughter cells.
 Background of Endosymbiotic Theory

Proposed by Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts

Amherst.

In 1981, Margulis published Symbiosis in Cell Evolution in which she

proposed that the eukaryotic cells originated as communities of
interacting entities that joined together in a specific order.
Assumptions of Endosymbiotic Theory

Endosymbiotic theory, in its most basic and well-known

form, holds that mitochondria and plastids were once free-
living bacteria.

The endosymbiotic theory states that some of the

organelles in eukaryotic cells were once prokaryotic
microbes.
 Evidences
DNA - Bacterial cells as well as mitochondria and chloroplasts have circular DNA, not
linear.

Ribosomes - ribosomes inside the cell are AES ribosomes that has to do with their type
of structure whereas the ribosomes that are in mitochondria and chloroplasts are 70s
ribosomes. (70s ribosomes are the kind that are found in bacterial cells further
suggesting that these organelles came from bacteria.)

Size –The size of mitochondria and chloroplast tends to be similar to the size of bacteria

When mitochondria divide and chloroplasts divide, they divided in a way that is similar
to how a bacteria divide, which is called binary fission.
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