Why do prokaryotes not develop organelles? Is there a benefit to being more simple if you’re unicellular?
In: Biology
Firstly, there are lots of unicellular organisms that do have organelles, as there is a broad diversity of unicellular eukaryotes (probably over 95% of eukaryotic diversity is unicellular).
The most simple answer to why prokaryotes don’t have organelles is that prokaryotes by chance have not evolved the machinery to generate and maintain organelles.
One particular organelle of note, the mitochondrion, was acquired in a single event where a primitive cell engulfed a particular prokaryote and enslaved it, and the engulfed prokaryote was passed down to all of the descendants of that original cell, eventually evolving into the current mitochondrion. All descendants from that event are eukaryotes.
To answer the last part of your question, some would argue that prokaryotes, lacking a mitochondrion, do not generate as much energy as eukaryotes, so they can’t meet the energy needs to maintain organelles, although this is controversial.
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