Biomedical Sciences: The Eocyte Hypothesis

Biomedical Sciences Author Name University Name The eocyte hypothesis is a significant biological classification that indicates that eukaryotes originated in eocytes (also known as Crenarchaeota), which is a phylum of the archaea. In 1984, James Lake and his companions proposed this hypothesis after studying the shapes and sizes of ribosomes in eukaryotes and crenarchaeota for years. They claimed that both eukaryotes and crenarchaeota possess similar characteristics, and their eocyte hypothesis gained lots of attention (Zimmer, 2009). Unlike the eocyte hypothesis, in the unexpected ancestry theory, biologists divided life into eukaryotes and prokaryotes using different microscopes and they aimed to find details of organelles and cells. Unfortunately, they could not achieve any success, and thus this project was shut down. Similarly, in 1983, Thomas Smith from the University of Oxford stated that eukaryotes were capable of branching off before bacteria could enter their cells and become mitochondria. He believed that the eocyte hypothesis was invalid and didn’t s...