Hyman Hartman, Institute for Advanced Studies in Biology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Published online: March 2002
DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0000463
The progenote is a hypothetical candidate for the last universal cellular ancestor. There are two major conjectures associated with this entity: (1) the progenote's genome is based on RNA rather than DNA and (2) the replication, transcription and translation of this RNA organism had a much higher error rate than the ensuing DNA-based cells.
Keywords: eukaryotes; prokaryotes; archaebacteria; eubacteria; endosymbiosis
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Figure 1. The three kingdoms: archaebacteria, eubacteria and urkaryotes emerge simultaneously from the universal ancestor, the progenote. (Adapted from Woese, Scientific American, 1981.)
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Figure 2. The tree based on ribosomal RNA has been rooted by using the elongation genes EF-Tu and EF-G. The tree shows the early branching of the eubacteria from the progenote and the later branching of the archaebacteria and the eukaryotes. (Adapted from Woese,
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| References | |
| Blattner FR, Plunkett G III, Bloch CA et al. (1997) The complete genome sequence of Escherichia coli K-12. Science 277: 1453–1474. | |
| Doolittle RF (1995) The origins and evolution of eukaryotic proteins. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Series B, Biological Sciences 29: 235–240. | |
| Hartman H (1984) The origin of the eukaryotic cell. Speculations in Science and Technology 7: 77–81. | |
| book Margulis L (1970) Origin of Eucaryotic Cells. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. | |
| Reanney DC (1984) RNA Splicing as an error-screening mechanism. Journal of Theoretical Biology 110: 315–321. | |
| book Schopf JW (1999) Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. | |
| Stanier RY and van Niel CB (1962) The concept of a Bacterium. Archive Microbiologie 42: 17–34. | |
| book Wilson EB (1925) The Cell in Development and Heredity, 3rd edn. New York: Macmillan. | |
| book Woese CR (1983) "The primary lines of descent and the universal ancestor". In: Bendall DS (ed.) Evolution from Molecules to Men. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. | |
| proceedings Woese CR (2000) Interpreting the universal phylogenetic tree. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 97: 8392–8396. | |
| proceedings Woese CR and Fox GE (1977) Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: the primary kingdoms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 74: 5088–5090. | |
| Zuckerkandl E and Pauling L (1965) Molecules as documents of evolutionary history. Journal of Theoretical Biology 8: 357–366. | |
| Further Reading | |
| book Hartman H (1992) "The eukaryotic cell and the RNA-protein world". In: Tran Thanh Van J, Tran Thanh Van K, Mounolou JC, Schneider J and Mckay C (eds) Frontiers of Life. Paris: Editions Frontières. | |
| book Hartman H (1992) "The eukaryotic cell: evolution and development". In: Hartman H and Matsuno K (eds) The Origin and Evolution of the Cell. New Jersey: World Scientific Press. | |
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