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Archaeal evolution

Uncovering the hidden world of nanosized archaea

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 21, page 638 (2023)Cite this article

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Symbiosis, (derived from Greek συμβίωσις, that is, ‘living together’) is a central driving force in evolution, hypothesized to underlie one of the most important transitions in the evolution of cellular life on Earth: the origin of the eukaryotic cell from an intimate long-term interaction between at least one archaeal and one bacterial partner. Despite the historical importance of symbiosis and our increasing awareness of the significance of symbioses in the functioning of extant ecosystems, much of our knowledge on symbioses remains limited to selected host–symbiont systems. In particular, little is known about the diversity of archaeal symbionts and the interactions they engage in. In fact, until a couple of decades ago, obligate archaeal symbionts were thought be restricted to some methanogenetic lineages.

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References

Original article

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  • Baker, B. J. et al. Enigmatic, ultrasmall, uncultivated Archaea. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 8806–8811 (2010)

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  • Rinke, C. et al. Insights into the phylogeny and coding potential of microbial dark matter. Nature 499, 431–437 (2013)

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  • Castelle, C. J. et al. Genomic expansion of domain Archaea highlights roles for organisms from new phyla in anaerobic carbon cycling. Curr. Biol. 25, 690–701 (2015)

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Acknowledgements

A.S. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 947317, ASymbEL), the Simons Foundation 735929LPI, https://doi.org/10.46714/735929LPI (Award Number: 811944), and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF9741 and GBMF9346.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Microbiology and Biogeochemistry, NIOZ, Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Den Burg, Netherlands

    Anja Spang

  2. Department of Evolutionary and Population Biology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Anja Spang

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  1. Anja Spang
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Correspondence to Anja Spang.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Spang, A. Uncovering the hidden world of nanosized archaea. Nat Rev Microbiol 21, 638 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-023-00912-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-023-00912-3

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