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Reply to ‘Is LUCA a thermophilic progenote?’

Nature Microbiology volume 1, Article number: 16230 (2016) Cite this article

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Weiss et al . reply — In response to our recent paper1, Gogarten and Deamer2 write in with five paragraphs. They focus on traditional views concerning the nature of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). We find the current exchange worthwhile in that it highlights several important differences in older and newer concepts concerning both LUCA and approaches to inference of its properties.

Their first paragraph, which summarizes some, but by no means all, virtues of submarine hydrothermal vents in the context of life's origin, requires no response, although John Baross3, Mike Russell4 and Everett Shock5 can explain far better than we can how warmly the idea that life arose at hydrothermal vents was “welcomed”2.

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Author notes

  1. Sinje Neukirchen, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi & Filipa L. Sousa

    Present address: † Present address: Department of Ecogenomics and Systems Biology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria (S.N., F.L.S.); Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Group, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Trivandrum, Kerala 695014, India (S.N.-S.).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Molecular Evolution, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraβe 1, Düsseldorf, 40225, Germany

    Madeline C. Weiss, Sinje Neukirchen, Mayo Roettger, Natalia Mrnjavac, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, William F. Martin & Filipa L. Sousa

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  1. Madeline C. Weiss
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Correspondence to Madeline C. Weiss.

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Weiss, M., Neukirchen, S., Roettger, M. et al. Reply to ‘Is LUCA a thermophilic progenote?’. Nat Microbiol 1, 16230 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.230

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