Mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles of the eukaryotic cell, originate from an endosymbiotic alpha-proteobacterium. These organelles are believed to have arisen only once in evolutionary history, but despite their common ancestry, mitochondrial DNAs vary extensively throughout eukaryotes in genome architecture and gene content. New insights into early mitochondrial genome evolution come from the investigation of primitive mitochondriate eukaryotes, as well as the comparison between mitochondria and intracellular bacterial symbionts.

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