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Ancient Paralogous Duplications and the Search for Archean Cells

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Book cover Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 446))

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Abstract

A detailed examination of traits common to the three cell lineages suggests that their last common ancestor was not an inmediate, direct descendant of the RNA world, but rather a complex cell comparable in many ways to modern prokaryotes. The phylogenetic analysis of sets of duplicated genes common to the three major branches of evolutionary trees provides insights into the characteristics of their cell-like ancestors, which appear to have been endowed with simpler metabolic abilities and a less complex replication apparatus. Such molecular explorations in the early stages of cell evolution may provide useful constraints that will aid in the design of experimental approaches to the understanding of the origin of the first self-sustaining, self-replicating biological systems.

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  1. Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo. Postal 70-407, Cd. Universitaria, México, 04510, D.F., Mexico

    V. García-Meza, A. González-Rodríguez & A. Lazcano

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  1. V. García-Meza
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  2. A. González-Rodríguez
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  3. A. Lazcano
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  1. Center for the Philosophy & History of Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Gail R. Fleischaker

  2. Departimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy

    Stefano Colonna

  3. Institut für Polymere, ETH-Zürich, Switzerland

    Pier Luigi Luisi

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García-Meza, V., González-Rodríguez, A., Lazcano, A. (1994). Ancient Paralogous Duplications and the Search for Archean Cells. In: Fleischaker, G.R., Colonna, S., Luisi, P.L. (eds) Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures. NATO ASI Series, vol 446. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0754-9_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0754-9_19

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