Unprecedented atlas explores mitochondria across the tree of life

Scientists mapped mitochondrial proteins across six organisms spanning the eukaryotic tree of life, including five single-celled parasites and one plant. In Giardia lamblia they identified 59 mitochondrial proteins, 27 of them new, and combined data from six organisms with humans and yeasts into 8,619 proteins across 3,199 families, of which 33 families occur in eukaryotic pathogens but not humans, marking candidate drug targets for diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness.