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Metabolic Vestiges of Conflict Mediation in Modern Biology

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Energy and Evolutionary Conflict

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Abstract

The complex interplay between metabolism and evolutionary conflict suggests that multicellular eukaryotes should be a veritable museum of mitochondrial and metabolic vestiges of conflict mediation. Many of these vestiges should lead back to the mechanisms of chemiosmosis. This may provide a framework to rationalize at least some seemingly baroque cellular and molecular natural histories. Several examples are discussed in this context: the curious case of STAT3, the role of mitochondria in calcium signaling, links between mitochondrial metabolism and angiogenesis, insulin and the power of substrate, and the role of mitochondria in innate immunity. In these and other cases, basic regulatory mechanisms may date to the origin of the eukaryotic cell. Metabolic regulation in particular evolved from mediating levels-of-selection conflicts. When eukaryotes become multicellular, these within-cell pathways may then have been co-opted into between-cell pathways. The success of eukaryotes in mediating within-cell conflicts may have preordained their success in mediating between-cell conflicts and thus achieving multicellularity. Certainly, eukaryotes have achieved notable success as multicellular organisms. The challenges that had to be overcome in forming a higher-level unit out of a community of energy-converting lower-level units may have given eukaryotes a remarkable toolkit to overcome such conflicts in subsequent evolutionary transitions. Perhaps this is the evolutionary version of the old adage—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or at least more evolvable.

Eukaryotes are complex and the pivotal role of mitochondria in the origin of that complexity…seems increasingly difficult to dispute….

Bill Martin [1]

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  1. Dept of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL, USA

    Neil W. Blackstone

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Blackstone, N.W. (2022). Metabolic Vestiges of Conflict Mediation in Modern Biology. In: Energy and Evolutionary Conflict. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06059-5_11

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