Archaea and the origin of eukaryotes
Eme, Laura ; Spang, Anja ; Lombard, Jonathan ; Stairs, Courtney W. LU
and Ettema, Thijs J.G.
(2017)
In Nature Reviews Microbiology
15(12).
p.711-723
- Abstract
Woese and Fox's 1977 paper on the discovery of the Archaea triggered a revolution in the field of evolutionary biology by showing that life was divided into not only prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Rather, they revealed that prokaryotes comprise two distinct types of organisms, the Bacteria and the Archaea. In subsequent years, molecular phylogenetic analyses indicated that eukaryotes and the Archaea represent sister groups in the tree of life. During the genomic era, it became evident that eukaryotic cells possess a mixture of archaeal and bacterial features in addition to eukaryotic-specific features. Although it has been generally accepted for some time that mitochondria descend from endosymbiotic alphaproteobacteria, the precise... (More)
Woese and Fox's 1977 paper on the discovery of the Archaea triggered a revolution in the field of evolutionary biology by showing that life was divided into not only prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Rather, they revealed that prokaryotes comprise two distinct types of organisms, the Bacteria and the Archaea. In subsequent years, molecular phylogenetic analyses indicated that eukaryotes and the Archaea represent sister groups in the tree of life. During the genomic era, it became evident that eukaryotic cells possess a mixture of archaeal and bacterial features in addition to eukaryotic-specific features. Although it has been generally accepted for some time that mitochondria descend from endosymbiotic alphaproteobacteria, the precise evolutionary relationship between eukaryotes and archaea has continued to be a subject of debate. In this Review, we outline a brief history of the changing shape of the tree of life and examine how the recent discovery of a myriad of diverse archaeal lineages has changed our understanding of the evolutionary relationships between the three domains of life and the origin of eukaryotes. Furthermore, we revisit central questions regarding the process of eukaryogenesis and discuss what can currently be inferred about the evolutionary transition from the first to the last eukaryotic common ancestor.
(Less)
- author
- Eme, Laura
; Spang, Anja
; Lombard, Jonathan
; Stairs, Courtney W.
LU
and Ettema, Thijs J.G.
- publishing date
- 2017-12-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- in
- Nature Reviews Microbiology
- volume
- 15
- issue
- 12
- pages
- 711 - 723
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85033582578
- pmid:29123225
- ISSN
- 1740-1526
- DOI
- 10.1038/nrmicro.2017.133
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Funding Information: The authors wish to thank A. Roger and W. F. Doolittle for fruitful discussions. L.E. is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 704263.J.L. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship for foreign researchers from the Wenner-Gren Foundations in Stockholm (UPD2016-0072). C.W.S. is supported by a European Molecular Biology Organization long-term fellowship (ALTF-997-2015) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral research fellowship (PDF-487174-2016). This work is supported by grants of the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant 310039-PUZZLE_CELL), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF-FFL5) and the Swedish Research Council (VR grant 2015–04959), awarded to T.J.G.E. Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
- id
- 59f973b2-995a-4bfc-8c40-84351394938a
- date added to LUP
- 2021-11-08 18:11:31
- date last changed
- 2024-06-16 22:35:08
@article{59f973b2-995a-4bfc-8c40-84351394938a,
abstract = {{<p>Woese and Fox's 1977 paper on the discovery of the Archaea triggered a revolution in the field of evolutionary biology by showing that life was divided into not only prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Rather, they revealed that prokaryotes comprise two distinct types of organisms, the Bacteria and the Archaea. In subsequent years, molecular phylogenetic analyses indicated that eukaryotes and the Archaea represent sister groups in the tree of life. During the genomic era, it became evident that eukaryotic cells possess a mixture of archaeal and bacterial features in addition to eukaryotic-specific features. Although it has been generally accepted for some time that mitochondria descend from endosymbiotic alphaproteobacteria, the precise evolutionary relationship between eukaryotes and archaea has continued to be a subject of debate. In this Review, we outline a brief history of the changing shape of the tree of life and examine how the recent discovery of a myriad of diverse archaeal lineages has changed our understanding of the evolutionary relationships between the three domains of life and the origin of eukaryotes. Furthermore, we revisit central questions regarding the process of eukaryogenesis and discuss what can currently be inferred about the evolutionary transition from the first to the last eukaryotic common ancestor.</p>}},
author = {{Eme, Laura and Spang, Anja and Lombard, Jonathan and Stairs, Courtney W. and Ettema, Thijs J.G.}},
issn = {{1740-1526}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{12}},
number = {{12}},
pages = {{711--723}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Nature Reviews Microbiology}},
title = {{Archaea and the origin of eukaryotes}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.133}},
doi = {{10.1038/nrmicro.2017.133}},
volume = {{15}},
year = {{2017}},
}