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Mysterious Asgard archaea microbes reveal their inner secrets

A microorganism that is a proposed relative of our cellular ancestors has been grown successfully in the laboratory. Its internal architecture offers clues to the early evolution of eukaryotic cells.
  1. Jan Löwe

    1. Jan Löwe is at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK.

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The nucleus-containing cells of animals, plants and fungi, called eukaryotic cells, arose during evolution through the merging of cells of two types of microorganism — archaea and bacteria — in a process termed eukaryogenesis. How exactly this happened remains enigmatic. The discovery of DNA sequences from a group of microbes called Asgard archaea revealed them to be the best candidates for the archaeal lineage related to the one involved in eukaryogenesis1. However, Asgard archaea have proved very difficult to grow in the laboratory. Writing in Nature, Rodrigues-Oliviera et al.2 report successful culture of the Asgard organism Lokiarchaeum ossiferum, the second to have been grown in a laboratory so far. Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum was the first3, but certain details of the intracellular organization of those archaea could not be established.

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Nature 613, 246-248 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04450-5

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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