Sep 9, 2025 08:21 PM
https://www.quantamagazine.org/tiny-tube...e-20250908
INTRO: In 2010, biologists made a shocking discovery. Living in the mud of the North Sea were microorganisms whose genes looked a lot like ours. Genetic analysis revealed that humans, oak trees, blue whales — any living things whose cells have nuclei and mitochondria — are related to these microbes, which were named the Asgard archaea after the home of the Norse gods. Two billion years ago, it was an ancestor of an Asgard that diverged from its kin and eventually became us.
No one knows precisely how that happened, and for a long time, no one even knew what these long-lost cousins looked like. Asgard DNA could be fished out of the mud and studied, but the cells themselves were so rare and hard to grow in the lab that no one could scrutinize them under the microscope. There was an explosion of speculation among scientists about what they would be like. Would they be big? Small? Covered with tentacles, shaped like rods, perfectly spherical? Do their cells look like ours inside, or are they completely different?
Little by little, researchers have worked out ways to grow them and watch as they go about their lives. Now, some of the first reports about the biology of certain Asgards are revealing new, provocative details about the interior lives of these cells. The latest paper, from the labs of Martin Pilhofer at ETH Zurich and Christa Schleper at the University of Vienna, describes how a portion of their cytoskeleton — the set of cellular structures that give a cell its shape — is surprisingly similar to what can be found in more complex organisms such as ourselves.
In our cells, cytoskeletal proteins called tubulins snap onto each other to form soaring tubular arches and rails, capable of spanning entire cells, growing at one end while they fall apart at the other. These tubes, known as microtubules, form and bloom and decay in a dance that controls many aspects of eukaryotic life. They handle our chromosomes and help cells divide. They carry machines and act as tracks for motors. They push and pull cellular membranes, turning them into useful shapes.
Now, researchers have found that these proteins are in those mysterious cells. What are they doing there? And could they be part of what, so long ago, helped our ancestors strike out in new directions? (MORE - details)
INTRO: In 2010, biologists made a shocking discovery. Living in the mud of the North Sea were microorganisms whose genes looked a lot like ours. Genetic analysis revealed that humans, oak trees, blue whales — any living things whose cells have nuclei and mitochondria — are related to these microbes, which were named the Asgard archaea after the home of the Norse gods. Two billion years ago, it was an ancestor of an Asgard that diverged from its kin and eventually became us.
No one knows precisely how that happened, and for a long time, no one even knew what these long-lost cousins looked like. Asgard DNA could be fished out of the mud and studied, but the cells themselves were so rare and hard to grow in the lab that no one could scrutinize them under the microscope. There was an explosion of speculation among scientists about what they would be like. Would they be big? Small? Covered with tentacles, shaped like rods, perfectly spherical? Do their cells look like ours inside, or are they completely different?
Little by little, researchers have worked out ways to grow them and watch as they go about their lives. Now, some of the first reports about the biology of certain Asgards are revealing new, provocative details about the interior lives of these cells. The latest paper, from the labs of Martin Pilhofer at ETH Zurich and Christa Schleper at the University of Vienna, describes how a portion of their cytoskeleton — the set of cellular structures that give a cell its shape — is surprisingly similar to what can be found in more complex organisms such as ourselves.
In our cells, cytoskeletal proteins called tubulins snap onto each other to form soaring tubular arches and rails, capable of spanning entire cells, growing at one end while they fall apart at the other. These tubes, known as microtubules, form and bloom and decay in a dance that controls many aspects of eukaryotic life. They handle our chromosomes and help cells divide. They carry machines and act as tracks for motors. They push and pull cellular membranes, turning them into useful shapes.
Now, researchers have found that these proteins are in those mysterious cells. What are they doing there? And could they be part of what, so long ago, helped our ancestors strike out in new directions? (MORE - details)