❗️ Exciting review alert❗️focussing on the evolution and mechanism of prokaryotic ESCRT-III-like systems.. fun collaboration with Tom Williams @tweethinking.bsky.social!

doi.org/10.1016/j.sb...

some thoughts on new methods to root a phylogenomic tree: the smart, the symbiotic, the violent

sishuowang2022.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/n...

#phylo
@tweethinking.bsky.social @andrewjroger.bsky.social

#Asgard,#phylogeny
1/ 🧵 Does MAGs contamination affect the placement of Njord as suggested by Zhang et al, 2025? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Our updated analysis suggests instead... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dating Bacteria is hard due to the lack of maxima. Assuming aerobes likely postdated the GOE gave us better resolved ages, but also surprised us, but not Dr Dayhoff, showing O2 use predated its atmospheric rise by 900 Mys and helped oxygenic photosynthesis to evolve. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Asgard archaea have actin - but what about microtubules? Where do they come from? 🧐 Our new paper www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... by @xujwet.bsky.social & @florianwollweber.bsky.social, in collaboration with the Schleper & Wieczorek labs, describes tiny Asgard microtubules! #TeamTomo #ArchaeaSky 1/6

Very interesting indeed for enthusiasts of symbiotic integration...

Check out raxtax, our new open-source tool for taxonomic classification of barcoding sequences, it's 2.7-1000 times faster than competing tools and also implements fancy uncertainty scores: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... It's nice to see this study come out - genomic and evolutionary characterisation of deep soil-dwelling bacteria and their relatives, led by Xun Qian and colleagues.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Exploring the root of the eukaryotic tree with new phylogenetic models (including extending branch-heterogeneous models to bigger datasets that previously). Very interesting stuff, nice to see the preprint published!

John Archibald also wrote an accessible summary of the work here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Asgardarchaea & Alphaproteobacteria: key players for the assembly eukaryotic central carbon metabolism! Our new study reveals their gene contributions to glycolysis & TCA cycle, supporting synthrophic scenarios of eukaryogenesis.
rdcu.be/eb0aK

The position will involve developing pipelines and collaborating with other postdocs working on specific case studies of WGD across these different locations. See project website here www.rediploidisation.org. Feel free to contact James ([email protected]) or me for inquiries, or see the ad.

The position will focus on phylogenomic and comparative genomic analyses of whole genome duplication and asynchronous rediploidization in eukaryotes. It's part of a wider large-scale grant (BBSRC sLOLA), with partners across the UK and further afield (e.g. Edinburgh, Oxford, Kew, Bristol, TCD, UCD).

Job announcement: a four-year postdoc position in phylogenomics at the Milner Centre for Evolution, Bath, with James Clark and me (I'm moving to Bath later in the year...). www.bath.ac.uk/jobs/Vacancy...

Tagging @anja1.bsky.social and @wentsunghwang.bsky.social 🤣

These are Asgard archaea that have evolved by genome reduction from a more complex ancestor, perhaps due to evolving a symbiotic lifestyle … not the only Asgards that have trodden that path…

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A new collaborative paper with Anja Spang, Wen-Cong Huang, @chrisrinke.bsky.social @ettema.bsky.social @ssolo.bsky.social Zheng-Shuang Hua Maraike Probst and Lenard Szantho. We investigated the phylogenetic position and metabolic evolution of Panguiarchaeum.

New research on ancient Asgard archaeal ESCRT-III proteins reveals evolutionary secrets of membrane remodelling.
Diorge Souza, Javier Espadas and Sami Chaaban, investigated the ESCRT-III proteins with Buzz Baum and Aurelien Roux.
Read more: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/asgard-archa...
#LMBResearch (1/2)

Nice to see this out :)

Our LUCA study, led by @emoody.bsky.social has made it to #shortwave @NPR! Thanks to @jonlambert.bsky.social for indulging us @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

www.npr.org/2025/01/17/1...

Very interesting paper on the conservation of genes involved in fungal symbiosis in land plants! www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Yay! Our LUCA study shorturl.at/09YR8 made into @quantamagazine.bsky.social list of 2024's biggest breakthroughs! Thanks to @emoody.bsky.social @tweethinking.bsky.social Davide Pisani @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and the rest of our amazing team!

New short paper in GBE on the evolution of Pseudotrichomonas track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...