Finally published at long last (at least in the pre-view version). Explore the wild and woolly world of archaeal histones! Interactive archaeal histone graph incluced rdcu.be/fdFjv. Congratulations to first author Shawn Laursen
A recent publication in The Journal of Chemical Physics by ISTA alumni Felix Frey and Miguel Amaral with Professor Anđela Šarić explores how geometry controls archaeal membrane stability and lipid organization.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0325170
An Asgard archaeon from a modern analog of ancient microbial mats (Current Biology)
Beautiful microscopy of an Asgard archaeon, in the same family as Lokiarchaea, in syntrophy with a sulfate-reducing bacteria
Very very nice paper we saw in preprint form:
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Phylogenomics of Asgard archaea reveals a unique blend of prokaryotic-like horizontal transfer and eukaryotic-like gene duplication www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs
Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
What if AI could invent enzymes that nature hasn’t seen? 👩🔬🧑🔬
Introducing 🪩 DISCO: Diffusion for Sequence-structure CO-design
📝 Blog: disco-design.github.io
📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.05181
💻 Code: github.com/DISCO-design...
Such an incredible journey building DISCO 🪩. Love working with this team. DISCO is a co-design model with functional, de novo, new-to-nature enzymes. Huge shoutout to my co-authors for making this a reality! 🚀👇
PostDoc position available!
(links in post below)
Feel free to share!
Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin
#microbiology #genetics #genome #chromatin #archaea #eukaryotes #MicroSky
@cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New review in @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social on the fascinating world of chromatin organization in Asgard archaea. Very nice joint effort with @jvhooff.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We have just published a short note on archaeal phylogeny: complex mixture models support a deep placement of Methanonatronarchaeia within Euryarchaea and indicate that three recently described groups (Halorutilales, Afararchaeaceae, and Ordosarchaeia) are actually the same.
shorturl.at/5GMpU
New paper in mSystems! 🧵 - how much of your metagenome is actually bacterial/archaeal DNA? For many samples, nobody knows.
We built SingleM prokaryotic_fraction (SPF) to answer this, then ran it on >100,000 public metagenomes. 🧬🖥️🦠
Here's what we found 👇
doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01062-25
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/...
The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life | PNAS https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2516062123
Out Now! Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling #MicroSky
Read our review about the "Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea" in @natrevmicro.nature.com here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
By @kassipan.bsky.social @stephkoe.bsky.social @micropat.bsky.social & @gerbenz.bsky.social
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...
Bonus: Also out today is our review on Asgard archaea, led by the incredibly talented @kassipan.bsky.social 🤩
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
10/10 Huge thanks to co-authors @jvhooff.bsky.social, @kassipan.bsky.social, @danieltamarit.bsky.social, @valdeanda.bsky.social, @katyappler.bsky.social, @archaeal.bsky.social & my amazing supervisor @ettema.bsky.social 🙏
9/10 Caveats we take seriously: iESPs ≠ direct ancestry. Structural similarity to eukaryotic proteins reflects functional/evolutionary relevance, not necessarily vertical inheritance. Patchy distribution across Asgard clades means loss & HGT can't be excluded.
8/10 iESPs are enriched in information storage & processing (n=271 clusters), especially translation/ribosome biogenesis — consistent with the known archaeal provenance of eukaryotic transcription/translation machinery.
Metabolic iESPs (n=137) were a surprise. 🤔
7/10 We also found Ufm1 and CINP — proteins present in 5–9 major Asgard clades but absent from all other prokaryotes, suggesting genuine Asgard archaeal provenance in the eukaryotic lineage.
Phylogenetics suggest CINP as a sister clade of Heimdallarchaeia.
6/10 Notable finds: Asgard archaeal homologues of the Vault (MVP) complex and the Commander (COMMD) complex — two eukaryotic assemblies whose prokaryotic origins were previously unknown.
Multimer modelling predicts ring-shaped homo-oligomers in both cases. 🏛️
5/10 We then ran each structure against AF2-SwissProt via Foldseek, testing for statistically significant enrichment of eukaryotic hits (Fisher's exact test, Bonferroni-corrected).
Result: 908 "isomorphic ESPs" (iESPs) — >3× the previously known ESP count.
