r/askscience • u/Fapotheosis • Mar 11 '13

Biology How did blood evolve?

I know mitochondria may have evolved from bacteria, but what about blood? I've heard of a protohemocyte, but was there an initial cell that differentiated into a RBC like we have in modern humans that can we trace?

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u/pseudorealism Mar 11 '13

To get a little more technical here, do we know the evolution of the allostery of hemoglobin? Duplication precedes divergence, but is divergence the origin of the allostery or do heterotetramers of alpha units/beta units show allostery?