An important step towards revealing the identity and nature of the archaeal ancestor was made following metagenomics-based discovery of the Asgardarchaeota superphylum, a group of uncultivated archaea consisting of Loki-, Thor-, Heimdall- and Odinarchaeia. Their recognition as the clos...
(the closest eocytic lineage to eukaryotes to date) are likely to have a microoxic niche, based on their genomic potential, with aerobic metabolic pathways that are unique among Archaea (that is, the kynurenine pathway); (2) provide evidence of mixotrophy within Asgardarchaeota; and (3) ...
Asgardarchaeota have been proposed as the closest living relatives to eukaryotes, and a total of 72 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) representing six primary lineages in this archaeal phylum have thus far been described. These organisms are predicted to be fermentative heterotrophs contributing to ...
In particular, it has been suggested that Asgardarchaeota would be part of the same clade of eukaryotes. If so - and being the difference between Asgardarchaeota and eukaryotes very large - then all this would imply that their common ancestor was a progenote, i.e. a protocell in which...
Here, we reconstructed 15 metagenomic-assembled genomes from coastal sediments covering most known Asgard archaea and a novel group, which is proposed as a new Asgard phylum named as the "Gerdarchaeota".Genomic analyses predict that Gerdarchaeota are facultative anaerobes in utilizing both organic ...
Common ancestry of eukaryotes and Asgardarchaeota: Three, two or more cellular domains of life?doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2019.110083Massimo Di GiulioJ Theor Biol
recoding of stop codons expands the metabo1ic po10tia1 of two nove1 asgardarchaeota 1ineagesFig. 2 Inferred metabolism of Sifarchaeia and Jordarchaeia. Each of the arrows represents functions assigned to predicted proteins encoded in the respective genomes (Sifarchaeia, 4 MAGs, max. ...
Here, we describe a previously unrecognized archaeal phylum, Hermodarchaeota, affiliated with the Asgard superphylum. The genomes of these archaea were recovered from metagenomes generated from mangrove sediments, and were found to encode alkyl/benzyl-succinate synthases and their activating enzymes ...
Asgard archaea are widely distributed in anaerobic environments. Previous studies revealed the potential capability of Asgard archaea to utilize various organic substrates including proteins, carbohydrates, fatty acids, amino acids and hydrocarbons, sugg