Archaea

Scientists expand the microbial tree of life by publishing more than 1,000 novel reference genomes.  

Two previously overlooked archaeal strains fill an evolutionary gap for microbes.

A newly discovered superphylum of archaea may be related to a microbe that engulfed a bacterium to give rise to complex eukaryotic life.

A metagenomics analysis finds Cas9 in archaea for the first time, along with two previously unknown Cas nucleases from bacteria.

Researchers discover acetogenesis in archaea, suggesting an important role for these little-studied organisms in generating organic carbon below the seafloor.

Bathyarchaeota undergo acetogenesis, generating organic carbon below the seafloor.

Extremophiles can thrive on perchlorates and metabolize carbon monoxide, researchers report.

Did endosymbiosis—and the innovations in membrane bioenergetics it engendered—make it possible for eukaryotic life to evolve?

Deep-sea microbes possess hallmarks of eukaryotic cells, hinting at a common ancestor for archaea and eukaryotes.

By horizontal gene transfer, an antibacterial gene family has dispersed to a plant, an insect, several fungi, and an archaeon.

Genes acquired from bacteria contributed to the origins of archaeal lineages, a large-scale phylogenetic analysis suggests.

Researchers uncover a group of mobile genetic elements in bacteria and archaea encoding a Cas enzyme.

Charting the progress of the various large-scale genome-sequencing projects as researchers working separately on their chosen species begin to pool analytical resources

Biochemistry reveals the missing link in a pathway that archaea and some bacteria use to generate essential compounds.

Ribosomal RNA fingerprints reveal the three domains of life.

How did Earth become biological?

Extremophiles living in Antarctica’s salty Deep Lake exchange genes much more often than previously observed in nature.

DNA and RNA sequences from Lake Vostok below the Antarctic glacier reveal thousands of bacteria species, including some commonly found in fish digestive systems.

Whether infecting hot spring-dwelling microbes or humans, viruses co-opt the same group of proteins to assemble themselves and break out of cells.

A red alga appears to have adapted to extremely hot, acidic environments by collecting genes from bacteria and archaea.