Complex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes

Complex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes

The origin of the eukaryotic cell remains one of the most contentious puzzles in modern biology. Recent studies have provided support for the emergence of the eukaryotic host cell from within the archaeal domain of life, but the identity and nature of the putative archaeal ancestor remain a subject of debate. Here we describe the discovery of ‘Lokiarchaeota’, a novel candidate archaeal phylum, which forms a monophyletic group with eukaryotes in …

Thanks to a trick, biologists have succeeded in reconstructing a tree of reliable kinship of all the eukaryotes – one of the three major groups of the living. They have deduced from it the structure of their last common ancestor, Leca.