Reconciling Asgardarchaeota Phylogenetic Proximity to Eukaryotes and Planctomycetes Cellular Features in the Evolution of Life

The relationship between the three domains of life—Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya—is one of Biology’s greatest mysteries. Current favored models imply two ancestral domains, Bacteria and Archaea, with eukaryotes originating within Archaea. This type of models has been supported by the recent description of the Asgardarchaeota, the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes. However, there are many problems associated with any scenarios implying that eukaryotes originated from within the Archaea, including genome mosaicism, phylogenies, the cellular organization of the Archaea, and their ancestral character. By contrast, all models of eukaryogenesis fail to consider two relevant discoveries: the detection of membrane coat proteins, and of phagocytosis-related processes in Planctomycetes, which are among the bacteria with the most developed endomembrane system. Consideration of these often overlooked features and others found in Planctomycetes and related bacteria suggest an evolutionary model based on a single ancestral domain. In this model, the proximity of Asgard and eukaryotes is not rejected but instead, Asgard are considered as diverging away from a common ancestor instead of on the way toward the eukaryotic ancestor. This model based on a single ancestral domain solves most of the ambiguities associated with the ones based on two ancestral domains. The single-domain model is better suited to explain the origin and evolution of all three domains of life, blurring the distinctions between them. Support for this model as well as the opportunities that it presents not only for reinterpreting previous results, but also for planning future experiments, are explored.