Energetic constraints on the evolution of life

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Nick Lane (Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London)
• Monday 03 March 2014, 19:00-20:30
• Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Plant Sciences, Downing Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ivan Lam.

This talk is free for members of BioSoc or £2 for non-members. You can also sign up for life membership (£15) at this talk.

All morphologically complex life on Earth is eukaryotic, and all eukaryotes share a common ancestor that was already a complex cell. Despite their biochemical virtuosity, prokaryotes show no tendency to evolve eukaryotic traits or large genomes. I will argue that prokaryotes are constrained by their membrane bioenergetics, for fundamental reasons that stem from the very origin of life. Eukaryotes arose in a rare endosymbiosis between two prokaryotes, which broke the energetic constraints on prokaryotes and gave rise to mitochondria. Loss of almost all mitochondrial genes produced an extreme genomic asymmetry in eukaryotes, in which tiny mitochondrial genomes support, energetically, a massive nuclear genome, giving eukaryotes 3-4 orders of magnitude more energy per gene than prokaryotes. The requirement for endosymbiosis radically altered selection on eukaryotes, potentially explaining the evolution of unique traits, including two sexes, speciation and ageing.

This talk is part of the Cambridge University Biological Society series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Biology
• Cambridge Infectious Diseases
• Cambridge University Biological Society
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Chris Davis' list
• Featured lists
• Featured talks
• Guy Emerson's list
• Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Plant Sciences, Downing Site
• Life Sciences
• Life Sciences
• ME Seminar
• Major Public Lectures in Cambridge
• MedSoc
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• PMRFPS's
• custom
• my_list
• other talks
• personal list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.