Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28604769›Full record

ArticlePLoS genetics2017

Lokiarchaea are close relatives of Euryarchaeota, not bridging the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Violette Da Cunha, Morgan Gaia, Daniele Gadelle, Arshan Nasir, Patrick Forterre

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS genetics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
94citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

94 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Review
  3. The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  4. Review
  5. Phylogeny Building for Structural Phylogenomic Research.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Bioenergetics evolution: the link between Earth's and Life's history.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  8. Review
  9. Candidatus List No. 6.International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology · 2025
    Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Review
  15. Review
  16. The dynamic history of prokaryotic phyla: discovery, diversity and division.International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology · 2024
    Review
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Violette Da CunhaInstitut Pasteur, Unité de Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles (BMGE), Département de Microbiologie Paris, France.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9035-7825
Morgan GaiaInstitut Pasteur, Unité de Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles (BMGE), Département de Microbiologie Paris, France.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4936-4780
Daniele GadelleInstitute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1899-4464
Arshan NasirDepartment of Biosciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7200-0788
Patrick ForterreInstitut Pasteur, Unité de Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles (BMGE), Département de Microbiologie Paris, France.

Funding

European Research Council 340440
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The eocyte hypothesis, in which Eukarya emerged from within Archaea, has been boosted by the description of a new candidate archaeal phylum, "Lokiarchaeota", from metagenomic data. Eukarya branch within Lokiarchaeota in a tree reconstructed from the concatenation of 36 universal proteins. However, individual phylogenies revealed that lokiarchaeal proteins sequences have different evolutionary histories. The individual markers phylogenies revealed at least two subsets of proteins, either supporting the Woese or the Eocyte tree of life. Strikingly, removal of a single protein, the elongation factor EF2, is sufficient to break the Eukaryotes-Lokiarchaea affiliation. Our analysis suggests that the three lokiarchaeal EF2 proteins have a chimeric organization that could be due to contamination and/or homologous recombination with patches of eukaryotic sequences. A robust phylogenetic analysis of RNA polymerases with a new dataset indicates that Lokiarchaeota and related phyla of the Asgard superphylum are sister group to Euryarchaeota, not to Eukarya, and supports the monophyly of Archaea with their rooting in the branch leading to Thaumarchaeota.

Indexed as

Evolution, MolecularPhylogenyArchaeal ProteinsEukaryotaEuryarchaeotaProkaryotic CellsArchaeal Proteins

Identifiers

PMID28604769
PMCPMC5484517

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.