Francisco's article

Hi everybody. I will write an article about the origin of mitochondria and how their genome has evolved over the time. I'm interested in this topic because I've been working with mitochondria for a long time. Mitochondrion is an organelle that can be found in almost all eukaryotic cells (like mammalian cells). It is called the powerhouse of the cell because it produces most of the energy that cells need to live. However, almost 1 billions years ago, the mitochondrion was a free-living organism that was eaten by another unicellular organism and established a relationship where both parts got some advantages, what we call a symbiosis. I will describe the most important theories that explain the origin of mitochondria, the identity of the ancient organism that participated in the symbiosis, and finally what happened with the genetic information that the mitochondrion’s ancestor possessed.