Asgard archaea illuminate the origin of eukaryotic cellular complexity

This week our new paper describing the discovery of four archaea phyla that are related to eukaryotes was published in Nature. These phyla belong to the same branch of life and have been named after different Norse gods, Thor, Odin, Heimdall, and Loki.  This is a collaboration with Thijs Ettema’s lab in Sweden. Last year we published the discovery of Thorarchaeota in ISME.

Genomic reconstruction of a novel, deeply branched sediment archaeal phylum with pathways for acetogenesis and sulfur reduction

This paper adds two additional phyla, Odinarchaeota and Heimdallarchaeota. The focus of this paper is to further resolve the phylogenetic position of eukaryotes in this new superphylum.  It also examines the presence of several new ESPs or eukaryotic signature proteins.  These proteins were mostly thought to exist in eukaryotes, but these genomes contain a variety of them!

Press releases to accompany this study:

UT press release

The Atlantic article by Ed Yong

Uppsala press release

Marine Microbiology: a community cleanup

by Rachel Mackelprang & Olivia U. Mason

DNA-SIP metagenomic experimental strategy for the identification and characterization of hydrocarbon-degrading microorgansims from DWH oil spill deep-plume and surface-slick samples.

 

Roy Rodriguez Carrero has joined the lab as an REU student for the summer.

Roy is doing some exciting work looking at the diversity and metabolisms of deeply-branched Archaea in the estuaries in south TX.

Through a collaboration with the Teske Lab (UNC), Tony Gutierrez (my 2015 REU student), and postdoc (Nina Dombrowski), several genomes were reconstructed from DNA-SIP experiments run on the DWH spill oil in 2010, (resulting in finding hydrocarbon degradation pathways in uncultured bacteria from the spill).

UT press release

Christian Science Monitor

The genomic hunt for oil-degrading bacteria after the Deepwater Horizon blowout: More than the usual suspects

This cover of The National from Scotland.

A new view of the tree of life

The rapid sequencing of new microbial genomes in recent years has left us wondering what all this new data has done to the tree of life.  To address this, a new paper that presents the new view of life diversity in the genomic era has just been published in Nature Microbiology.

This paper is a collaboration with many people, namely Laura Hug and Jill Banfield (at UC Berkeley).

UC Berkeley press release

UT press release

Branching out

Carl Zimmer’s New York Times coverage

Daily News

Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships 2016

 

Our new paper published in Nature Microbiology, which was a collaboration with the Ettema Lab (Upsalla Univ), and Teske Lab (UNC Chapel Hill), begins to resolve the metabolic capabilities of a group (class) of Archaea (referred to as SAGMEG) that are predominant in the subsurface and have not been cultured.Two of the genomes were recovered from this hot spring in Yellowstone National Park (photo by Dan Coleman).

Genomic inference of the metabolism of cosmopolitan subsurface Archaea, Hadesarchaea

 

 

 

 

 

 

Press releases about this article.

• New microbes that thrive deep inside Earth discovered (The Economic Times)
• New microbes that thrive deep inside Earth discovered (The Times of India)
• Scientists discover new microbes that thrive deep in the earth (Phys.org)
• New microbes that thrive deep in the earth discovered (Daijiworld.com)
• Scientists discover new microbes that thrive deep in the earth (EurekAlert!)
• Scientists discover new microbes that thrive deep in the earth (ScienceDaily)
• New Class of Microbes ‘Hadesarchaea’ Discovered Deep Inside Earth (MedIndia)

A deeply-branched widespread new group of Archaea whose genomes were recovered from estuary sediments, but are in sediments around the world. Read about their physiologies in this first paper in ISME J.

Genomic reconstruction of a novel, deeply branched sediment archaeal phylum with pathways for acetogenesis and sulfur reduction

This paper was highlighted in Nature as well.

Hu P, Tom LM, Singh A, Thomas BC, Baker BJ, Piceno YM, Andersen GL, Banfield JF. (2016) Genome-resolved analysis reveals roles for candidate phyla bacteria in biogeochemical transformations in hydrocarbon reservoirs. mBio. 7, e01669-15.

Genomic evidence for distinct carbon substrate preferences and ecological niches of Bathyarchaeota in estuarine sediments