In the beginning was the word: How terminology drives our understanding of endosymbiotic organelles

Authors:

Miroslav Oborník 1,2

doi: 10.15698/mic2019.02.669
Volume 6, pp. 134 to 141, published 21/01/2019.

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Affiliations:

1 Biology Centre CAS, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

2 University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

Keywords: 

bacterium, eukaryote, organelle, evolution, microbiome, endosymbiosis, domestication.

Corresponding Author(s):

Miroslav Oborník, Biology Centre CAS, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic; obornik@paru.cas.cz

Conflict of interest statement:

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Please cite this article as:

Miroslav Oborník (2019). In the beginning was the word: How terminology drives our understanding of endosymbiotic organelles. Microbial Cell 6(2): 134-141. doi: 10.15698/mic2019.02.669

© 2019 Oborník. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

The names we give objects of research, to some extent, predispose our ways of thinking about them. Misclassifications of Oomycota, Microsporidia, Myxosporidia, and Helicosporidia have obviously affected not only their formal taxonomic names, but also the methods and approaches with which they have been investigated. Therefore, it is important to name biological entities with accurate terms in order to avoid discrepancies in researching them. The endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria and plastids is now the most accepted scenario for their evolution. Since it is apparent that there is no natural definitive border between bacteria and semiautonomous organelles, I propose that mitochondria and plastids should be called bacteria and classified accordingly, in the bacterial classification system. I discuss some consequences of this approach, including: i) the resulting “changes” in the abundances of bacteria, ii) the definitions of terms like microbiome or multicellularity, and iii) the concept of endosymbiotic domestication.