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ARCHAEAL BIOLOGY

Asgard archaeon rises from the mud

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 18, pages 122–123 (2020)Cite this article

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Eukaryotes have been proposed to have originated from archaea that entered into an endosymbiotic relationship with an alphaproteobacterium, which gave rise to mitochondria. Based on metagenomic data showing the presence of eukaryotic signature proteins, Asgard archaea have been proposed as the closest living relatives of these ancestral archaea. In a 12-year feat of persistence, Imachi, Nobu et al. brought an Asgard archaeon into laboratory culture for the first time.

Further physiological characterizations showed that ‘Ca. Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum’ is a small anaerobic coccus that forms unusual, elaborate protrusions, blebs and extracellular vesicles and lives in aggregates surrounded by extracellular polymeric substances. Its membrane consists of typical archaeal isoprenoid lipids and the cells show no signs of eukaryotic organelles. Furthermore, it can degrade amino acids anaerobically through symbiotic interspecies formate and hydrogen transfer with its syntrophic partner.

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References

Original article

  • Imachi, H. & Nobu, M. K. et al. Isolation of an archaeon at the prokaryote-eukaryote interface. Nature 577, 519–525 (2020)

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Related article

  • Eme, L. et al. Archaea and the origin of eukaryotes. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 15, 711–723 (2017)

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  1. Nature Reviews Microbiology http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/

    Ursula Hofer

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  1. Ursula Hofer
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Correspondence to Ursula Hofer.

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Hofer, U. Asgard archaeon rises from the mud. Nat Rev Microbiol 18, 122–123 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0334-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0334-y

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