Communications Biology - Two coinfecting archaeal viruses provide insights into virus-virus interactions

The amoeba Incendiamoeba cascadensis demonstrates that eukaryotic life can withstand temperatures beyond what was thought possible and sheds light on molecular strategies for survival in extreme heat.

Protists play important roles in food chains and symbioses in soil and aquatic environments, displaying an enormous morphological and functional diversity[1][1],[2][2]. While most commonly found proti...

Viruses are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements that are obligate symbionts of cellular life forms and replicate exclusively within host cells. The ...

Preventing dietary exposure to toxic metals remains an unmet challenge. We engineered probiotics that sense and sequester arsenite in the gastrointestinal tract, reducing its systemic absorption and promoting its fecal elimination. This study establishes a programmable synthetic biology strategy for protecting against environmental toxicants.

Asgard archaea are the closest known relatives of eukaryotes and are central to models of eukaryogenesis involving archaeal bacterial symbiosis, yet the contribution of viruses remains unexplored. Her...

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Bacteriophages are key tools in molecular biology and promising agents against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Here, the authors present a high-throughput droplet microfluidics platform that co-encapsu...

Archaea and bacteria routinely live side by side in microbial communities and must interact at least on occasion. Whether such cross-Domain interactions are dominated by mutual disregard, co-operation...

Abstract. It has been proposed that a defining distinction between viruses and cells lies in the absence or presence of ribosomal genes, respectively. Rece

Abstract. Archaea possess a remarkably diverse mobilome, but for many archaeal viruses and plasmids, even the basic processes, such as genome replication,

Eukaryotes originated from the symbiosis of an Asgard archaeon, the alphaproteobacterial ancestor of mitochondria, and possibly additional bacterial contributions. This transition occurred in redox-transition environments such as microbial mats or shallow sediments ~2 billion years ago, when atmospheric oxygen was far lower than today. We investigated Asgard-enriched microbial mats from the low-oxygen, sulfidic Catherine volcano lake (Afar region, Ethiopia), mimicking early Proterozoic conditions. 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding, metagenomics, and metagenome-assembled genome analyses across redox-stratified layers of in situ and mesocosm-maintained mats revealed that Asgardarchaeota thrived in the sulfate-reduction zone, mainly co-occurring with Desulfurobacterota-Myxococcota, among others. Lokiarchaeia and Thorarchaeia preferred anoxic layers. Within Heimdallarchaeia, Heimdallarchaeales were enriched in upper layers, correlating with oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase and sulfate-reduction genes, and Hodarchaeales, in anoxic layers, correlating with methanogenesis. Although reactive-oxygen-species defense mechanisms were widespread, Asgardarchaeota lacked aerobic respiration. These results support the idea that Asgard archaea engaged primarily in syntrophic interactions with sulfate-reducers under early-Earth-like conditions. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, 101141745, 787904 Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR-23-CE02-0016-01, ANR-22-CE02-0012 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, https://ror.org/006wxqw41, GBMF9739

Abstract. How gene order along chromosomes affects cellular homeostasis and genome evolution remains poorly understood. Bacterial chromosomes are organized

Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

Cyanobacteria are the earliest known organisms that produced oxygen through photosynthesis, leading to the oxygen atmosphere that allowed the evolu...

Giant DNA viruses encode a cap-binding complex homologous to eIF4F, the defining translation-initiation complex of eukaryotes. The viral cap-binding complex is required for viral protein synthesis and...

In contrast to living organisms, viruses were long thought to lack protein synthesis machinery and instead depend on host factors to translate viral t…

Microorganisms commonly exist in polymicrobial communities, where they can respond to interspecies secreted molecules by altering behaviors and phy...

Environmental metagenomic explorations show that Mirusviricota lineages lack essential replication and transcription genes and contain spliceosomal introns, suggesting nuclear reproduction.

The discovery of an unusual protist named Solarion arienae, which has a mitochondrial genome with some intriguing features, provides insight into the early radiation of eukaryotic groups.