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MASSIVE DISCONTINUITY. "In the early 1960s, Stanier et al. famously wrote that the “basic divergence in cellular structure, which separates the bacteria and blue-green algae from all other cellular organisms, represents the greatest single evolutionary discontinuity to be found in the present-day world”." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

FATEFUL TRANSITION. "Whatever meaning one assigns to the history of life, the advent of eukaryotic cells marked a radical and fateful transition." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

RICHER POTENTIAL. "Compared to prokaryotes, eukaryotic cells represent not only an alternative mode of cellular organization but one endowed with far richer evolutionary potential: only among Eukarya do we find integrated multicellular creatures that bear embryos, respond to music, and reflect on their own nature." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

SHARED FEATURES EMERGING. Now we are finding "the appearance among prokaryotes of precursors of structures or processes once thought to be exclusive to and universal among eukaryotes—endomembrane systems comprising the nucleus, endoplasmatic reticulum, and Golgi apparatus and a cytoskeleton involved in cellular motility, phagocytosis, and vesicular trafficking." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

PIVOTAL FOR EUKARYOTES. "The acquisition of mitochondria was the pivotal moment in the history of life." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

INDEPENDENT PLASTID ENDOSYMBIOSIS. "These latter are cyanobacterial descendants with highly reduced genomes, which apparently first entered into endosymbiosis only some 60 Mya, long after and completely independently from (other) plastids." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

HARDER TAKES LONGER. "The eukaryotic cell originated by the most complex set of evolutionary changes since life began: eukaryogenesis. Their complexity and mechanistic difficulty explain why eukaryotes evolved two billion years or more after prokaryotes." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

RARE IS DOCUMENTED. "Nevertheless, syntrophic interactions between anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria have resulted in the evolution of aggregates with a measure of coordinated growth and reproduction between the partners." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

NOT UNIQUE BUT RARE. "Among studied exclusively prokaryotic multilineage consortia, varying levels of integration have been documented, although endosymbiosis is extremely rare." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

NOT UNIQUE ORIGIN. "Eukaryogenesis is not unique as an organismal merger of entities from taxonomically distinct lineages, although the tightness of integration between mitochondria and their host is probably the most derived currently known." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn