by Christoph — There was joy, even excitement among archaeologists when the first images of P. syntrophicum MK‑D1 made the rounds. This sense of joy deepend still when images of its cousin Lokiarchaeon ossiferum Loki-B35 were added a little later. The ancestors suddenly got their own faces, literally, and were no longer only vaguely recognizable from genome sequences!
by Christoph — Based on their knowledge of the morphology of P. syntrophicum MK-D1 from electron microscopy and their knowledge of its physiology from growth assays and genome analysis, Imachi, Nobu et al. (2020) propose a hypothetical model, the E3 model, of how the first evolutionary steps towards eukaryogenesis might have occurred in an ancestral archaeon living ~2 billion years ago.
by Christoph — ...is a metaphysical affair across all human cultures. For experimental biologists, it is the more prosaic, physical task of cultivating extant prokaryotic relatives of the ancestors of the eukaryotes in the lab. Or the 'most likely' ancestors of the eukaryotes, to be cautious when leaping back ~2 billion years in time. Now, meet the archaeon Promethearchaeum syntrophicum MK-D1 and its syntrophic companions.
Noteworthy — Fungi are wonderfully diverse and versatile microorganisms. And it is perhaps this versatility that makes them so adept at forming symbiotic relationships with other organisms. Mycorrhizae or endophytic fungi, for example, inhabit plant tissues where they reside within or between plant cells.
by Tobias Engl — Beewolves, their larvae, and their Streptomyces symbionts not only use multiple, largely different classes of chemical compounds to protect themselves against detrimental microbial competitors. To be most effective, these compounds are produced and deployed in a precisely timed sequence. ...
Noteworthy — This paper describes the highly evolved interactions between anaerobic protists and their syntrophic sulfate-reducing symbionts. Remarkably, the symbionts reside in an elaborate symbiosomal membrane network...
