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The mysterious microbes that gave rise to complex life

As scientists learn more about enigmatic archaea, they’re finding clues about the evolution of the complex cells that make up people, plants and more.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance science journalist in the Los Angeles area of California.

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Coloured scanning electron micrograph of Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum archaea

Scientists spent 12 years culturing a slow-growing, tentacled archaeon thought to be similar to the ancestor of complex cells. Credit: Hiroyuki Imachi, Masaru K. Nobu and JAMSTEC

Evolutionary biologist David Baum was thrilled to flick through a preprint in August 2019 and come face-to-face — well, face-to-cell — with a distant cousin. Baum, who works at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was looking at an archaeon: a type of microorganism best known for living in extreme environments, such as deep-ocean vents and acid lakes. Archaea can look similar to bacteria, but have about as much in common with them as they do with a banana. The one in the bioRxiv preprint had tentacle-like projections, making the cells look like meatballs with some strands of spaghetti attached.

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Nature 593, 328-330 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01316-0

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