UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN CENTRE FOR GEOBIOLOGY, R.B. PEDERSENUsing metagenomics techniques to analyze samples of deep-sea prokaryotic microbes collected near a mid-Atlantic hydrothermal vent, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden and their colleagues have identified a new species of archaea—one with several eukaryote-like genes, hinting at a potential common ancestor for archaea and eukaryotes. The team’s results were published in Nature this week (May 6).
“In the field of the origin of eukaryotic cells, this is probably one of the biggest new discoveries that we’ve seen for 30 years or so,” said evolutionary biologist Andrew Roger of Dalhousie University in Canada who was not involved in the work. “It’s a true so-called missing link between archaea and eukaryotes.”
“This is the most exciting and important paper on big questions about eukaryotic origins and the tree of life in years,” said evolutionary biologist Jeffrey Palmer of Indiana University, Bloomington, who was not involved with the work. “This should have a major effect on textbook treatment of these subjects.”
SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES; JUN WU, DAIJI OKAMURAA team led by investigators at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, has identified a new pluripotent cell type: region-selective pluripotent stem cells (rsPSCs). RsPSCs, which the team isolated from early mouse embryos as well as monkey and human cell lines, can be stably cultured and a more amenable to experimental manipulations, the researchers noted in their May 6 Nature paper reporting the finding.
