WIKIMEDIA, JIM PEACOOne key step in the origins of eukaryotic life likely involved a single, large archaeon engulfing a smaller bacterium. The symbiotic relationship between the microbes flourished, researchers have proposed, giving rise to modern mitochondria and chloroplasts that share striking similarities with their aerobic and photosynthetic predecessors, respectively. But scientists have long searched for the archaeon behind the initial engulfing.
According to a study published January 11 in Nature, this archaeon may have been related to the Asgard archaea—a pantheon of microbes named for Norse gods, including Lokiarchaeota, Thorarchaeota, Odinarchaeota, and Heimdallarchaeota.
“The things we thought made a eukaryote a eukaryote, we’re now finding in these new archaea,” coauthor Brett Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, said in a press release. “We’re essentially rewriting the textbook on basic biology.”
In 2015, coauthor Thijs Ettema of Uppsala University in Sweden discovered a new type of microbe and named it Lokiarchaeota. Shortly thereafter, a separate team discovered a similar microbe and named it Thorarchaeota. In both cases, the researchers noted the similarities between these archaea and eukaryotic cells.
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