What are the advantages of 80S ribosomes over 70S ribosomes?

[Kitrak]

I was just wondering why eukaryotes evolved the slightly different 80S ribosome rather than continuing to use prokaryotic 70S ribosomes. What was the necessity for this change? Besides maybe accommodation for more complex eukaryotic translation enzymes, etc

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Here's a nice review article on the topic (it's a little old though, so there may be newer info if you search around more):

Melnikov et al. 2012. One core, two shells: bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes. Nat Struct Mol Biol 19:560. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2313

Abstract:
Ribosomes are universally conserved enzymes that carry out protein biosynthesis. Bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes, which share an evolutionarily conserved core, are thought to have evolved from a common ancestor by addition of proteins and RNA that bestow different functionalities to ribosomes from different domains of life. Recently, structures of the eukaryotic ribosome, determined by X-ray crystallography, have allowed us to compare these structures to previously determined structures of bacterial ribosomes. Here we describe selected bacteria- or eukaryote-specific structural features of the ribosome and discuss the functional implications of some of them.

 

[Kitrak]

Thanks!