The Significance of Prokaryotes

To many, prokaryotes may seem as uninteresting, insignificant organisms, but to biologists, prokaryotes have the greatest success story in the history of life.

Prokaryotes have been around for at least 3.5 billion years, considering that the earth is over 4.5 billion years old. They are the earliest known organisms to ever inhabit the earth. Still small and insignificant they may seem, they have been able to endure and evolve on their own for over 2 billion years. They have produced a substantial impact on all life as we know on earth, and they have been able to go on to survive and adapt to an ever evolving land.

Though there are many differences between prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells. Notwithstanding, its their similarities that scientists have found intriguing which has led to conjectures about the source of life, but have been neglected by other scientists for almost a century.

Although prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells have been around for billions of years, it was only until 1883 when the first observations of a symbiotic union of organisms were formed. French botanist, Andreas Franz Schimper (1856-1901) was able to observe the similarities in the cell division of that of free-living cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. It was his studies of the endosymbiotic potential nature of cells, which led him to theorize the evolution of green plants.

In 1905, another biologist Konstantin Mereschkowsky (1855-1921) was the first to develop the idea of symbiogenesis which implies that symbiosis is “the...

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...ship occurs, there is gene transfer between the organisms which is beneficial to the host cell as well as the symbiont.

Inquiry at the University of Miami has established that an animal cell and a symbiotic bacteria can go together to forge a single organismal system. One of their experiments was with pea aphid which would govern the manufacturing of essential nutrients that its symbiotic bacteria, Buchnera aphidicola, would supply.

All in all we are able to understand the significance of prokaryotes, not merely to the human species, but to other species and organisms as well. These prokaryotes are the inventors of biochemical pathways and contain an extreme biochemical diversity which has enabled them to survive and succeed as a kingdom on its own.