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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2017

Lynn Margulis, architect of the endosymbiotic theory

Résumé

Lynn Margulis is known as the scientist who advanced the endosymbiotic theory in the late 60’s (Sagan, 1967) and brought it from its rejection to its acceptance by the scientific community in the 80’s. Nevertheless, Margulis’ contribution was neither new, nor decisive in terms of conclusive experiments. The hypothesis of an endosymbiotic origin of chloroplast was first proposed in the late 19th century. In the 60’s, Margulis professor's Hans Ris showed convincingly that plastids contain their own genetic material and revived the endosymbiotic hypothesis (Ris & Plaut, 1962). Similar hypotheses about mitochondria were made in the early 20th century and their DNA was then discovered in the same period than plastidial DNA. The passionate 70’s debate opposing symbiotic origin supporters and opponents remained unresolved until the development of a new field of biology to which Margulis addressed much criticism: molecular phylogeny. Moreover, the aspects of the theory she was the only scientist to defend (the symbiotic origin of the microtubule system) were not confirmed after 50 years of research. One could wonder which role Margulis played in reaching the consensus. I will argue that the original contribution of Margulis lies in her efforts to contextualize the mitochondrial and plastidial nature in a complete and coherent scenario of the evolution of life on Earth, and to combine all biological disciplines (and beyond): cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, symbiosis studies, systematics, paleontology. Thanks to her, this event of life history became a cross-disciplinary subject in debate at an international level. It allowed to review scattered and sometimes seemingly contradictory data. It stimulated research into this topic, whose results contributed in turn to support the theory. Margulis started a fruitful research program. References: Ris, H., Plaut, W. 1962. Ultrastructure of DNA-containing areas in the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas. The Journal of Cell Biology 13(3): 383‐391. Sagan, L. 1967. On the origin of mitosing cells. Journal of theoretical biology 14(3): 225‐274.
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halshs-01589119 , version 1 (18-09-2017)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-01589119 , version 1

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Jennifer Bernard. Lynn Margulis, architect of the endosymbiotic theory. ISHPSSB & ABFHiB 2017 Meeting, International society for the history, philosophy and social studies of biology (ISHPSSB), Jul 2017, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. ⟨halshs-01589119⟩
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