Missing link of cellular life found [View all]

[n2doc]

Deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and Norway, scientists have found microorganisms they call a missing link connecting the simple cells that first populated Earth to the complex cellular life that emerged 2 billion years ago.

The researchers said on Wednesday a group of microorganisms called Lokiarchaeota, or Loki for short, were retrieved from the inhospitable, frigid seabed about 2.35 km under the ocean surface. The discovery provides insight into how larger, complex cell types that are the building blocks for fungi, plants and animals including people, a group called eukaryotes, evolved from small, simple microbes, they said.

The Lokiarchaeota have relatively simple cells lacking internal structures such as a nucleus. But the researchers found the Lokiarchaeota share with eukaryotes a significant number of genes. These genes would have provided Lokiarchaeota "with a 'starter-kit' to support the development of cellular complexity," said evolutionary microbiologist Lionel Guy of Sweden's Uppsala University.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Missing-link-of-cellular-life-found/articleshow/47194616.cms

More info

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/05/06/newly-discovered-missing-link-called-loki-ties-us-to-our-single-celled-ancestors/