Asgard Archaea Illuminate the Origin of Eukaryotic Cellular Complexity Katarzyna Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka1*, Eva F
Asgard archaea illuminate the origin of eukaryotic cellular complexity Katarzyna Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka1*, Eva F. Caceres1*, Jimmy H. Saw1*, Disa Bäckström1, Lina Juzokaite1, Emmelien Vancaester1†, Kiley W. Seitz2, Karthik Anantharaman3, Piotr Starnawski4, Kasper U. Kjeldsen4, Matthew B. Stott5, Takuro Nunoura6, Jillian F. Banfield3, Andreas Schramm4, Brett J. Baker2, Anja Spang1 & Thijs J. G. Ettema1 1Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, SE-75123 Uppsala, Sweden. 2Department of Marine Science, University of Texas-Austin, Marine Science Institute, Port Aransas, Texas 78373, USA. 3Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. 4Section for Microbiology and Center for Geomicrobiology, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark. 5GNS Science, Extremophile Research Group, Private Bag 2000, Taupoˉ 3352, New Zealand. 6Research and Development Center for Marine Biosciences, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan. †Present address: Department of Plant Systems Biology, VIB and Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Technologiepark 927, B-9052 Ghent, Belgium. *These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract The origin and cellular complexity of eukaryotes represent a major enigma in biology. Current data support scenarios in which an archaeal host cell and an alphaproteobacterial (mitochondrial) endosymbiont merged together, resulting in the first eukaryotic cell. The host cell is related to Lokiarchaeota, an archaeal phylum with many eukaryotic features. The emergence of the structural complexity that characterizes eukaryotic cells remains unclear. Here we describe the ‘Asgard’ superphylum, a group of uncultivated archaea that, as well as Lokiarchaeota, includes Thor-, Odin- and Heimdallarchaeota.
[Show full text]