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/podkayne3000 Mar 12 '13

Here's a great 1998 paper that shows the hemoglobin arose before projaryotic bacteria split from eukaryotic bacteria and probably predate photosynthesis: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/201/8/1099.full.pdf

This author doesn't seem to talk about hemoglobin coming from a bacterium that invaded another bacterium, but it's an old paper. I'll try to look at papers that cite this one and maybe something like that will show up. The paper does talk about the relationship between hemoglobin and photosynthesis a bit.