A billion years ago, a single-celled eukaryote engulfed a cyanobacterium – an organism capable of converting the sun's energy into food in the form of carbohydrates. In one of the single most pivotal ...

One of the most momentous events in the history of life involved endosymbiosis—a process by which one organism engulfed another and, instead of ingesting it, incorporated its DNA and functions into ...

Plastids are organelles found in the cells of higher plants, the best-known form being the chloroplast, the site of photosynthesis. They arose when, way back in time, plant ancestors assimilated ...

Endosymbiosis of photosynthetic cyanobacterium into nonphotosynthetic eukaryotes led to the emergence of plastids 1,2. Based on their morphology and function, the plastids can be divided into ...