Abstract
This chapter summarizes the evidence sustaining the concept that mitochondria derive from a particular type of bacteria, the alpha proteobacteria. Once considered a hypothesis, this concept is now a scientific fact and therefore should not be viewed in dubitative terms. What remains uncertain is from which bacterial taxa the proto-mitochondria originated. However, the quest to find the living bacterial relatives of our mitochondria is narrowing to a limited set of alpha proteobacteria with ample metabolic versatility. The results of this quest are likely to throw new light on various aspects of mitochondrial physiology and biochemistry.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Esperanza Martinez Romero (E.M.R.) for her support. This work was sponsored in part by CONACyT grants No. 263876 and 253116 to E.M.R.
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Esposti, M.D. (2018). Mitochondria: Where Are They Coming From?. In: Oliveira, P. (eds) Mitochondrial Biology and Experimental Therapeutics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73344-9_2
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