The mitochondrion descends from a bacterium that, about two billion years ago, became endosymbiotic. This organelle represents a Pandora’s box whose opening triggers cytochrome-c release and apoptosis of cells from multicellular animals, which evolved much later, about six hundred million years ago. BCL-2 proteins, which are critical apoptosis regulators, were recruited at a certain time point in evolution to either lock or unlock this mitochondrial Pandora’s box. Hence, particularly intriguing is the issue of when and how the “BCL-2 proteins-mitochondria-apoptosis” triptych emerged. This chapter explains what it takes from an evolutionary perspective to evolve a BCL-2-regulated apoptotic pathway, by focusing on the events occurring upstream of mitochondria.
CITATION STYLE
Aouacheria, A., Le Goff, E., Godefroy, N., & Baghdiguian, S. (2016). Evolution of the BCL-2-regulated apoptotic pathway. In Evolutionary Biology: Convergent Evolution, Evolution of Complex Traits, Concepts and Methods (pp. 137–156). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41324-2_9
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