Nika Pende

Asgard archaeal origin of microtubules
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Active virus-host system in a Lokiarchaeon culture Asgard archaea are considered the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes and having a crucial role in eukaryogenesis. Only few organisms have been cultivated from this group and their viruses were previously described only through metagenomic reconstructions. Here, we report the first successful cultivation of an Asgard archaeal virus infecting a novel strain of Ca. Lokiarchaeum ossiferum B36. The 16 kbp integrated provirus is capable to excise and replicate independently leading to the formation of virus particles. Network analysis of shared protein clusters with other archaeal viruses places it in a new family, Fylgjaviridae . The host encodes a distinctive repertoire of antiviral defense systems, including Septu, Wadjet, and type II CBASS system, all different from the defense systems of the related strain Ca. L. ossiferum B35. Our cultures provide the first opportunity to study interactions of a virus-host system in Asgards and hold significant potential for developing genetic tools. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. FWF Austrian Science Fund, 10.55776/EFP25, Z437 European Research Council, Advanced Grant #695192: TACKLE Max Planck Society, https://ror.org/01hhn8329

Active virus-host system in a Lokiarchaeon culture | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.13.705702v1?rss=1

DAY 188
SPECIES 188 - Methanobrevibacter smithii
STAGE: Archaea
MEDIUM: Arches Paper. HWC Watercolor. Sakura pen.

M. smithii is the predominant methanogenic archaeon in the human gut.

#sciart #watercolor #archaea #painting #art #paint

Live Cell Imaging of Ca. Nha. antarcticus and Hrr. lacusprofundi using agarose pads This protocol is an adapted form of the protocol developed for imaging haloarchaea (Liao et al., 2021) and subsequently applied to co-cultures containing nanohaloarchaea and haloarchaea (Hamm et al., ...

Live cell imaging of Ca. Nha. antarcticus and Hrr. lacusprofundi using agarose pads. Protocol now live!
www.archaea.bio/protocols/li...

Very nice work! Congrats to @syncellbiolab.bsky.social and all the authors 🥳

So happy that I could contribute to this nice paper and to see it finally out now! Special congrats to @dbaquero.bsky.social and @mkrupovic.bsky.social 🥳

Great work Diana! Happy to see it finally out! 🥳

Archaea and Us: Heroes or Villains? | Podcast Episode on RSS.com Welcome to ArchaeaCast! In our sixth episode, our hosts Priyanka Chatterjee and Dr. Connor Hines discuss the archaea that are very close to home–the ones that can live in and on us! In the second part...

On our new episode of Archaeacast, Priyanka and I cover the Archaea we carry with us every day. Followed by a brilliant interview w/ @chmoei.bsky.social discussing a correlation between Archaeal populations and BMI, the absence of pathogenic Archaea, & more!

#SciSky #AcademicSky #Microbiology #Life

Excited to announce the EMBO Conference: Molecular Biology of Archaea (MBoA) 2026!
Join us in Cambridge, UK, from 6–10 July 2026 for the only international meeting dedicated entirely to Archaea.

Sooo cool! Congrats @archaeon-alex.bsky.social and Co.!

Nice article about data sharing and community building in Archaeal research 🥰 @archaeabio.bsky.social @archaeapowerhour.bsky.social #ArchaeaSky

Congratulations! 🥳