Archaeal genetics articles from across Nature Portfolio

Methanogens conserve energy through methane generation, however the biochemical details of anaerobic respiration in methanogens remain unclear. Here, authors show a multiheme c-type cytochrome, MmcA, plays a critical role in methanogenesis and anaerobic respiration.

Alterations to archaeal histone-histone and histone-DNA contacts elicit dramatic impacts on transcription elongation processivity and the rate of RNA synthesis, suggesting the importance of distinct chromatin structures in regulated gene expression.

The cell membranes of many archaea contain characteristic membrane-spanning lipids known as glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraethers. Here, Zeng et al. identify a protein that participates in a key step of the synthesis of these lipids from diether precursors.

Lin et al. investigate the use of CRISPRi technology in haloarchaea to regulate the metabolic pathways related to PHBV synthesis to increase PHBV production in H. mediterranei. The authors report that repression of citrate synthase genes redirects metabolic flux and increases production of this degradable bioplastic, which could be used as an alternative to chemical synthetic plastic.

Methane metabolism has a central role in the global carbon cycle. In the Review, Tyson and colleagues discuss the enzymatic pathways responsible for archaeal methane metabolism and highlight the evolutionary relationships of key enzymes with recently discovered alkane-oxidizing archaea.

In this study, Catchpole et al. identify the first self-transmissible conjugative plasmid in the euryarchaeon Thermococcus sp. 33-3 and use it to genetically modify diverse hyperthermophilic archaea.

This study reports that the archaeal chromosome is organized into two compartments with differential gene expression activities that are maintained by a novel Sulfolobus-encoded structural maintenance of chromosomes protein.

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.

Although the spotlight on CRISPR–Cas systems has shone on their immense potential as genome-editing tools, the field’s origins are rooted in the microbiology of phage–bacterium interactions. Furthering our understanding of these processes can uncover more systems and generate new reagents with revolutionary properties.

In bacteria and archaea, CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems utilize RNA-guided endonucleases to defend against invasion by foreign nucleic acids of bacteriophage, virus and plasmid origin. In a recent paper published in Nature, Burstein et al. identified the first Cas9 protein in uncultivated archaea and two novel CRISPR-CasX and CRISPR-CasY systems in uncultivated bacteria by capitalizing on analysis of terabase-scale metagenomic datasets from natural uncultivated organisms.