beautiful work!

From Asgard to Earth: Tiny tubes may reveal the moment complex life began Stromatolites—and their close relatives, microbial mats—could be mistaken for what seems like a bunch of old dark rocks. But instead, they are dense, layered communities of microbes. Long before compl...

Our paper is out today! See this news article on it. Asgard archea have some cool proteins. If you are interested in protein evolution it’s a really exciting space. I’m lucky to be a structural biologist in the age of DL🧬🧶 @brendanburns999.bsky.social @iduggin.bsky.social @debnathghosal.bsky.social

An Asgard archaeon from a modern analog of ancient microbial mats A novel Asgard archaeon, Nerearchaeum marumarumayae, is present in microbial mats in Shark Bay, Australia. Combining genomic and structural analyses, together with high-resolution electron cryotomography, Nobs et al. reveal that these archaea possess unique cellular features that reflect their ancestry as progenitors of the earliest eukaryotic cells.

An Asgard archaeon from a modern analog of ancient microbial mats: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext...

Having a hard time keeping up with the fast-moving field of origin of eukaryotes/Asgards archaea? Our new perspective article can help, we review the status of research over the last decade and where it's going.

The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Asgard archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors? - The EMBO Journal The discovery of Asgard archaea about a decade ago has greatly reshaped our understanding of archaeal evolution and the origin of eukaryotes. Asgards are currently thought to be the closest prokaryoti...

Asgard archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors?
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

dude, finally! Congrats!

10 years of massive Asgard undertaking, masterly summarized!

Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea - Nature Reviews Microbiology The Asgard archaea have become a cornerstone of archaeal research, particularly for studies aiming to unravel the origin and early evolution of eukaryotes. This Review outlines the current state of th...

Just over ten years after the discovery of the first Asgard archaeal genomes, we revisit the rapid expansion of this remarkable archaeal lineage. From diverse genomes and metabolisms to eukaryotic signature proteins and the first cultured representatives.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com: Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling. Great work by @stephkoe.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social @jvhooff.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling

Congrats to all!

Oxygen metabolism in descendants of the archaeal-eukaryotic ancestor

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

cool work!

Cell cycle dysregulation of globally important SAR11 bacteria resulting from environmental perturbation - Nature Microbiology Without key cell cycle control genes, SAR11 cells experience aneuploidy and growth inhibition when exposed to changes in nutrients, carbon sources or temperature stress, a vulnerability that may repre...

Our latest. Led by the very talented @ahoiching.bsky.social

Cell cycle dysregulation of globally important SAR11 bacteria resulting from environmental perturbation www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs 🌊

Dominant contribution of Asgard archaea to eukaryogenesis - Nature A survey of the reconstructed gene set of the last eukaryotic common ancestor shows a consistent link between Asgard archaea and the origin of numerous, functionally diverse eukaryotic genes, dem...

Dominant contribution of Asgard archaea to eukaryogenesis.

tldr; Best guess, ~ 50% of conserved eukaryotic protein families are from from Asgard archaea!

#science #biology #evolution #nature #bioinformatics

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New Issue Alert — mLife Vol. 4, Issue 6 is out!
The issue features 10 open-access papers spanning host–pathogen interactions, bacterial cell division, RNA editing, phage therapy, CRISPR optogenetics, and more.
Table of contents here 👉
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Highlights below ⬇️

Join the IC-DLI x mLife Webinar on Deep Life Studies!
🗓 Dec 30 | 🕐 13:00 UTC | 🧪 3 exciting talks on:
• Deep-sea cold seep microbiomes
• Novel methanogens beyond Euryarchaeota
• Habitable rock–water systems
📍Zoom ID: 853 4219 3531 | PW: 904477

Come to follow the official BlueSky of the journal #mLife!

Insightful Review in #mLife!
Emerging single-cell sequencing and imaging technologies now allow for the profiling of microbial heterogeneity with unprecedented resolution—capturing phenotypic and spatial diversity within microbial communities.
🔗 doi.org/10.1002/mlf2...

amazing!

microscopic pictures and 3D reconstructions of a microbial cell

Discovery of rare #protist reveals previously unknown branch of eukaryotic tree of life phys.org/news/2025-11...

Rare microbial relict sheds light on an ancient eukaryotic supergroup www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Protists #Microbes #Evolution #Eukaryotes #TreeOfLife

An archaeal genetic code with all TAG codons as pyrrolysine Multiple genetic codes developed during the evolution of eukaryotes and bacteria, yet no alternative genetic code is known for archaea. We used proteomics to confirm our prediction that certain archae...

An archaeal genetic code with all TAG codons as pyrrolysine www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats Brett & co!

Asgards everyday! Another boost to the metabolism at the prokaryote-eukaryote interface.

Thanks Daan!

I'm happy to announce the latest release of the GlobDB, available at globdb.org.

The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.

Isolation of retron-bearing hosts from environmental samples. Top: Schematic of the isolation of bacteria from soil and water samples and identification of possible retron-bearing hosts using PAGE analysis (from left). Retron RT-DNA bands from PAGE analyses. Overview of sampling, screening of colonies, and identification of retron hosts. Hosts displaying an RT-DNA band were subjected to whole-genome sequencing. RT-DNA was subjected to unbiased adapter addition and sequencing. Bottom: Top left panel: Schematic of canonical retron operon with components annotated, effector in pink, noncoding RNA (ncRNA) in orange, and reverse transcriptase in purple. Other seven panels: Seven putative retron operons, identifying the retron type, host species, and predicted two-dimensional structure of the ncRNA. For retrons where RT-DNA sequencing is available, sequencing coverage is plotted onto ncRNA in an orange heatmap (heatmap legend indicated number of sequencing reads mapped). Gene abbreviations: NDT (nucleoside deoxyribosyltransferase-like); PRTase (phosphoribosyltransferase); WH (winged helix-turn-helix DNA binding); HTH (helix-turn-helix domain containing); HipA (HipA-like); DUF (DUF3037 domain-containing protein).

Bacteria rely on retrons for #phage defense, but most known systems come from clinical or lab strains. @seth-shipman.bsky.social &co identify diverse #retrons from environmental #bacteria, uncovering their defense mechanisms & using them as #GenomeEditing tools @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oDqRAF