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The Scientist » The Nutshell
By Joshua A. Krisch | January 18, 2017
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WIKIMEDIA, JIM PEACO
One key step in the origins of eukaryotic life likely involved a single, large archaeon engulfing a smaller
bacterium. The symbiotic relationship between the microbes flourished, researchers have proposed, giving
rise to modern mitochondria and chloroplasts that share striking similarities with their aerobic and
photosynthetic predecessors, respectively. But scientists have long searched for the archaeon behind the
initial engulfing.
According to a study published January 11 in Nature, this archaeon may have been related to the Asgard
archaea—a pantheon of microbes named for Norse gods, including Lokiarchaeota, Thorarchaeota,
Odinarchaeota, and Heimdallarchaeota.
“The things we thought made a eukaryote a eukaryote, we’re now finding in these new archaea,”
coauthor Brett Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, said in
a press release. “We’re essentially rewriting the textbook on basic biology.”
In 2015, coauthor Thijs Ettema of Uppsala University in Sweden discovered a new type of microbe and
named it Lokiarchaeota. Shortly thereafter, a separate team discovered a similar microbe and named it
Thorarchaeota. In both cases, the researchers noted the similarities between these archaea and eukaryotic
cells.
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See “Prokaryotic Microbes with Eukaryote-like Genes Found” Scientist
The Scientis
For the present study, Ettema and colleagues reconstructed the phylogenetic group from which these two
The Scientis
microbes likely originated, and reported two new groups also named for Norse gods, Odinarchaeota and
NeuroScient
Heimdallarchaeota. They then named the superphylum that contains all these groups “Asgard,” home of
the Norse gods. Genetics in L
Biology Brie
Their analysis suggests that Asgard archaea are similar to eukaryotes in several key ways. Asgard genomes
Biochemistry
are enriched for proteins once thought specific to eukaryotes, for instance, including genes that code for
eukaryotic membranetrafficking and vesicle biogenesis. The findings suggest that the archaeon that gave Bench to Be
rise to eukaryotic cells may well have been closely related to Asgard archaea. Cell Biology
Microbiology
“I am convinced that [further study] will reveal more important clues about how complex cells evolved,”
Cancer Rese
Ettema said in the press release. “Ultimately our microbial ancestry will be uncovered.”
Stem Cell an
Meantime, Ettema’s team will continue to search for more archaea within the Asgard superphylum.
“There’s around 50 more Asgardian gods,” he told The Atlantic. “We’re good to go for the next few years.”
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