Major transitions in evolution by genome fusions: from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, metazoans, bilaterians and vertebrates

Abstract

The major transitions in human evolution from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, from protozoans to metazoans, from the first animals to bilaterians and finally from a primitive chordate to vertebrates were all accompanied by increases in genome complexity. Rare fusion of divergent genomes rather than continuous single gene duplications could explain these jumps in evolution. The origin of eukaryotes was proposed to be due to a symbiosis of Archaea and Bacteria. Symbiosis is clearly seen as the source for mitochondria. A fundamental difference of higher eukaryotes is the cycle from haploidy to diploidy, a well-regulated genome duplication. Of course, self-fertilization exists, but the potential of sex increases with the difference of the haploid stages, such as the sperm and the egg. What should be the advantage of having two identical copies of a gene? Still, genes duplicate all the time and even genomes duplicate rather often. In plants, polyploidy is well recognized, but seems to be abundant in fungi and even in animals, too. However, hybridization, rather than autopolyploidy, seems to be the potential mechanism for creating something new. The problem with chimaeric, symbiotic or reticulate evolution events is that they blur phylogenetic lineages. Unrecognized paralogous genes or random loss of one of the paralogs in different lineages can lead to false conclusions. Horizontal genome transfer, genome fusion or hybridization might be only truly innovative combined with rare geological transitions such as change to an oxygen atmosphere, snowball Earth events or the Cambrian explosion, but correlates well with the major transitions in evolution.