Archaeal evolution articles from across Nature Portfolio

The archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes belonged to the phylum Asgardarchaeota, or Asgard archaea. Here, the authors use ancestral sequence reconstruction and experimentally determine the optimal GDP-binding temperature of a translation elongation factor from ancient and extant Asgard archaea, to infer optimal growth temperatures for eukaryotes’ ancestors.

The timing of cellular evolution is poorly constrained. Here, the authors used improved molecular dating approaches to study the evolution of the ATP synthase in light of a dated tree of life thereby providing an absolute timescale for cellular evolution including eukaryotic origins.

Non-ammonia oxidising Thaumarachaeota lineages are common in acidic soils, but their evolution is unclear. Here, the authors assemble 15 genomes from deeply rooted Thaumarachaeota in topsoils and subsoils, investigating evolutionary divergence in the family Gagatemarchaeaceae.

Analyses of multiple phylogenetic marker datasets of Asgard archaea provide insight into the transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, specifically placing eukaryotes within Asgard archaea and as a sister lineage to Hodarchaeales.

Bacteria of the genus Streptomyces have complex life cycles involving cellular differentiation and multicellular structures that have never been observed in archaea. Here, the authors show that several halophilic archaea display a life cycle resembling that of Streptomyces bacteria, undergoing cellular differentiation into mycelia and spores.

Bacteria can exchange DNA through extracellular appendages (‘mating pili’) in a process known as conjugation. Here, Beltran et al. determine atomic structures by cryo-electron microscopy of a bacterial conjugative pilus and two archaeal pili, showing that the archaeal pili are homologous to bacterial mating pili.

In this Journal Club, Anja Spang discusses the discovery of nanosized archaea, transforming our knowledge of archaeal phylogeny and shedding light on their roles in ecology and evolution.

Three different studies identify Asgardarchaeota-linked virus genomes that share commonalities with both prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses, yet they represent independent phylogenetic groups.

This study set out to resolve the differences in the inferred Archaea–Bacteria branch length.

This study reports the cultivation of a member of the Asgard archaea, which are the closest living relatives of the cells that gave rise to eukaryotes.

Two studies highlight that the growth of genome data and the development of new tools provide further opportunities for understanding the tree of life.

This month’s Genome Watch highlights the unique evolutionary history, metabolic functions, and newly identified viruses and associated mobile genetic elements for the highly abundant and ubiquitous ammonia-oxidizing archaea.