Archaeal genomics articles from across Nature Portfolio

Anaerobic methanotrophic (ANME) archaea are uncultivated microbes that oxidize the greenhouse gas methane and engage in extracellular electron transfer with other microbes, metal oxides, and electrodes. Here, Ouboter et al. observe strong methane-dependent current associated with high enrichment of ANME archaea on the anode, and provide insights into the mechanisms underlying extracellular electron transfer.

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.

Culture-independent CRISPR spacer screens enable the discovery of hundreds of viruses and mobile genetic elements infecting all known methanogenic lineages.

CRISPR spacers in DPANN archaea target putative essential genes in their episymbionts and could be a widespread occurrence across diverse archaeal lineages.

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.

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.

This issue marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of the landmark article by Carl Woese and George Fox in which they proposed the Archaea as a third domain of life.