Archaeal evolution articles from across Nature Portfolio

Here, structures of archaeal ribosome show details of ribosomal proteins and leaderless mRNAs binding to the small subunit, suggesting a positive role of eS26 in leaderless mRNAs translation and possible evolutionary routes from archaeal to eukaryotic translation.

This Review summarizes key events in the emergence of cellular complexity via eukaryogenesis in the light of developments in environmental and comparative genomics during the past decade.

Metagenome analysis of microbial communities from the Danakil Depression shows that haloarchaea and Nanohaloarchaeota dominate these life-limiting salt-saturated conditions and that these archaea have the most acidic proteomes observed so far.

Bacteria possess many types of antiviral immune systems, some of which are present also in eukaryotes. Here, Leão et al. explore the diversity and distribution of antiviral defense systems in archaea and their evolutionary relationships with bacterial and eukaryotic immune systems, supporting that Asgard archaea played important roles in the origin of eukaryotic innate immunity.

Eukaryotic Argonaute proteins participate in RNA-guided RNA silencing pathways and are divided into AGO and PIWI clades, with functional and mechanistic differences. Here, the authors show that a deep-branching PIWI protein from Asgard archaea (the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes) displays hybrid features and may reflect an ancestral molecular architecture that preceded the divergence of eukaryotic AGOs and PIWIs.

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.

This study shows that archaea produce catalytically active ultraminimal as well as hybrid [FeFe] hydrogenases.

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.