>This indicates that elaborate cytoskeletal structures arose in archaea even before the first eukaryotes appeared
Not really. It's also possible that Archaea could have continued to evolve over the last 2 billion years (as they undoubtedly have) and gained these features independently of Eukaryotes in a case of convergent evolution. Of course it's interesting either way since this group of Archaea was already thought to be among our closest relatives in the Archaea/Bacterial. It may be possible to sort this out with with genetics (are our cytoskeletal proteins evolved from theirs?).
They should have said something like "suggests" instead of "indicates" and "might have arose" instead of "arose" unless there is more to this work than is reported here.
knowyourbrain t1_j1k4omf wrote
Reply to A complex cytoskeleton, previously only observed in eukaryotic cells, is now found in a new species of archaea from the Asgard group, supporting the theory that eukaryotes evolved from Asgard archaea by vtj
>This indicates that elaborate cytoskeletal structures arose in archaea even before the first eukaryotes appeared
Not really. It's also possible that Archaea could have continued to evolve over the last 2 billion years (as they undoubtedly have) and gained these features independently of Eukaryotes in a case of convergent evolution. Of course it's interesting either way since this group of Archaea was already thought to be among our closest relatives in the Archaea/Bacterial. It may be possible to sort this out with with genetics (are our cytoskeletal proteins evolved from theirs?).
They should have said something like "suggests" instead of "indicates" and "might have arose" instead of "arose" unless there is more to this work than is reported here.