Serial innovations by Asgard archaea shaped the DNA replication machinery of the early eukaryotic ancestor.

ABSTRACT: The last eukaryotic common ancestor primarily inherited its core genetic system from archaea. However, it remains unclear when and how these essential machineries expanded their compositional and regulatory sophistication during eukaryogenesis. Here we combine statistical, phylogenetic, structural and biochemical approaches to examine the compositional diversity of the DNA replication machinery, that is, the replisome, across archaea and eukaryotes. We find that different lineages of Asgard archaea encode distinct replisome components with eukaryotic signatures, including a Baldrarchaeia-encoded DNA polymerase δ-like complex, a Sif/Wukong/Heimdallarchaeia-encoded primase complex and a Lokiarchaeales-encoded RFC clamp-loader complex. Copy number expansions driven by horizontal gene transfer

SUBMITTER: Feng Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12680538 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature