Expanded diversity of Asgard archaea and their relationships with eukaryotes.

ABSTRACT: Asgard is a recently discovered superphylum of archaea that appears to include the closest archaeal relatives of eukaryotes^1-5. Debate continues as to whether the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes belongs within the Asgard superphylum or whether this ancestor is a sister group to all other archaea (that is, a two-domain versus a three-domain tree of life)^6-8. Here we present a comparative analysis of 162 complete or nearly complete genomes of Asgard archaea, including 75 metagenome-assembled genomes that-to our knowledge-have not previously been reported. Our results substantially expand the phylogenetic diversity of Asgard and lead us to propose six additional phyla that include a deep branch that we have provisionally named Wukongarchaeota. Our phylogenomic analysis d

SUBMITTER: Liu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11165668 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature