LR Waldman | + Follow Poet |
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Inside Out

Inside Out

The mighty mitochondria make ATP, 
Without which there’d be no you or no me. 
From glucose, bonds break and energy flows, 
Through various molecules, energy goes. 
From foods that you once eventually ate, 
ADP gets another phosphate. 

It can reproduce when only one, 
(But all by itself, that can’t be much fun.) 

The round DNA in them that is found, 
Is the same as bacteria that today are around. 
But it still retains its original way,
And replicates with its own DNA.

Ribosomes also, like bacteria’s of course.
Of their proteins, they are the source.
The ribosomes that it uses to make its protein, 
Are just like bacteria’s, when close up are seen. 

And these proteins, they are very old,
Like those of bacteria, so we are told.

Two membranes it has and the problems that posed, 
Until the thought, it was once phagocytosed. 

The bacterium was phagocytized, no lysosome engaged,
They started living together with no one enraged.
And because at the start, the lysosome did fail, 
Now two membranes remain to suggest this tale.

And so it is true,
With chloroplasts too.
The same type of tale,
Just not being pale.
These are plain green,
And easily seen.
From sunlight and carbon they make a compound,
That their mitochondria can then break down.
For their mitochondria work just the same,
To make ATP, the name of the game.

Endosymbiosis is the name of the game,
Many people don’t get it and that’s a real shame.
It’s more than just two things living together,
It made them both quite different and better.
A few billion years past, both were living,
A cell and bacterium, each one giving.

What does it matter, why do we care?
Because with endosymbiosis, evolution does share.
The bacterium had talent in making ATP,
And became mitochondria in both you and me.

Copyright © LR Waldman | Year Posted 2016

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