---
OA_place: publisher
OA_type: hybrid
PlanS_conform: '1'
_id: '23171'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: Crawling motility is a hallmark of eukaryotic cells and requires a dynamic
actin cytoskeleton, regulated adhesion and spatially organized signalling pathways1,2.
Asgard archaea, which are considered the closest known prokaryotic relatives of
eukaryotes, potentially encode these functions within their large set of ‘eukaryotic
signature proteins’3,4,5,6. The few cultivated members show a complex cell morphology,
consisting of a central cell body from which several protrusions extend, filled
with an actin-based cytoskeleton7,8. Here, live-cell microscopy of two organisms
of the Lokiarchaea and Hodarchaea lineages7,9 showed that they dynamically and
greatly change their cell shape on a minute time scale and grow and retract their
extensive protrusions with a speed of 1.5–4.8 µm min−1, respectively. After adhering
to a glass surface, cells use their protrusions to undergo active crawling motion.
In the presence of selected actin inhibitors, however, the observed dynamics were
arrested, suggesting a central role of actin in these processes. The observed
cellular plasticity and motility are unique features among prokaryotes and might
have been crucial for the emergence of the first eukaryotic cells that are thought
to have formed through the association of a member of the Asgard archaea and an
α-proteobacterium, the ancestor of mitochondria.
acknowledged_ssus:
- _id: Bio
acknowledgement: This work would not have been possible without the technical support
in cultivation from K. Hager, F. Baraket, A. Malits and S. Harrer. We thank the
Imaging and Optics Facility (IOF) at ISTA for their help in setting up the anaerobic
environment during imaging and the Cell Imaging & Ultrastructure Research (CIUS)
facility at the University of Vienna for their support. Proteomics analyses were
performed by the Mass Spectrometry Facility at Max Perutz Labs using the VBCF instrument
pool. We also thank P. Klahn (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), M. Stadler and
members of his department (HZI Braunschweig) as well as R. Cox (LUH Hannover) for
providing different cytochalasans and P. Bieling (King’s College London) for discussion.
Most of this work was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) with grant DOI 10.55776/Z437
(available at https://doi.org/10.55776/Z437) and further supported by an emerging
field grant with grant DOI 10.55776/EFP25 (available at https://doi.org/10.55776/EFP25)
to C.S. For open access purposes, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright
license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.
This work was further supported by a European Research Council grant ERC-SyG (101071793)
to M.S., by the German Research Council through the CytoLabs consortium (Research
Unit 5170 to K.R. and T.E.B.S.), by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 22H04985 to H.I. and M.N. Furthermore, R.H.
was supported by CZI grant DAF2020-225401 and a grant (https://doi.org/10.37921/120055ratwvi)
from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF. Open access funding provided by University
of Vienna.
article_processing_charge: Yes (via OA deal)
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Philipp
full_name: Radler, Philipp
id: 40136C2A-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Radler
orcid: '0000-0001-9198-2182 '
- first_name: Tobias
full_name: Viehboeck, Tobias
last_name: Viehboeck
- first_name: Zhen-Hao
full_name: Luo, Zhen-Hao
last_name: Luo
- first_name: Nevena
full_name: Maslać, Nevena
last_name: Maslać
- first_name: Katharina
full_name: Schmidt, Katharina
last_name: Schmidt
- first_name: Robert
full_name: Hauschild, Robert
id: 4E01D6B4-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Hauschild
orcid: 0000-0001-9843-3522
- first_name: Masaru K.
full_name: Nobu, Masaru K.
last_name: Nobu
- first_name: Silvia
full_name: Bulgheresi, Silvia
last_name: Bulgheresi
- first_name: Theresia E. B.
full_name: Stradal, Theresia E. B.
last_name: Stradal
- first_name: Klemens
full_name: Rottner, Klemens
last_name: Rottner
- first_name: Hiroyuki
full_name: Imachi, Hiroyuki
last_name: Imachi
- first_name: Michael K
full_name: Sixt, Michael K
id: 41E9FBEA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
last_name: Sixt
orcid: 0000-0002-6620-9179
- first_name: Christa
full_name: Schleper, Christa
last_name: Schleper
citation:
ama: Radler P, Viehboeck T, Luo Z-H, et al. Dynamic protrusions mediate crawling
motility in Asgard archaea. Nature. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9
apa: Radler, P., Viehboeck, T., Luo, Z.-H., Maslać, N., Schmidt, K., Hauschild,
R., … Schleper, C. (2026). Dynamic protrusions mediate crawling motility in Asgard
archaea. Nature. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9
chicago: Radler, Philipp, Tobias Viehboeck, Zhen-Hao Luo, Nevena Maslać, Katharina
Schmidt, Robert Hauschild, Masaru K. Nobu, et al. “Dynamic Protrusions Mediate
Crawling Motility in Asgard Archaea.” Nature. Springer Nature, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9.
ieee: P. Radler et al., “Dynamic protrusions mediate crawling motility in
Asgard archaea,” Nature. Springer Nature, 2026.
ista: Radler P, Viehboeck T, Luo Z-H, Maslać N, Schmidt K, Hauschild R, Nobu MK,
Bulgheresi S, Stradal TEB, Rottner K, Imachi H, Sixt MK, Schleper C. 2026. Dynamic
protrusions mediate crawling motility in Asgard archaea. Nature.
mla: Radler, Philipp, et al. “Dynamic Protrusions Mediate Crawling Motility in Asgard
Archaea.” Nature, Springer Nature, 2026, doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9.
short: P. Radler, T. Viehboeck, Z.-H. Luo, N. Maslać, K. Schmidt, R. Hauschild,
M.K. Nobu, S. Bulgheresi, T.E.B. Stradal, K. Rottner, H. Imachi, M.K. Sixt, C.
Schleper, Nature (2026).
das_tickbox: '1'
dataavailabilitystatement: The plots in this manuscript were created using Jupyter
Notebook; the source data for all figures have been provided in data source tables.
Microscopy raw data for supplementary videos, the Jupyter notebooks to generate
the plots and the raw files for the structural phylogenetic analysis are available
at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30676367. The remaining raw microscopy data
generated for this manuscript are available from https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/bioimages/studies/S-BIAD3928.
The mass spectrometry proteomics data from the Co-IP experiments have been deposited
to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository79 and are available
at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/archive/projects/PXD068820. The mass spectrometry
proteomics data of the proteome analysis is available at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/archive/projects/PXD074767.
Source data are provided with this paper.
date_created: 2026-10-19T09:26:53Z
date_published: 2026-09-30T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-10-19T09:40:50Z
day: '30'
ddc:
- '570'
department:
- _id: MiSi
- _id: Bio
doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9
external_id:
pmid:
- '42816618'
fulldoi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9
has_accepted_license: '1'
language:
- iso: eng
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
url: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11063-9
month: '09'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
pmid: 1
project:
- _id: bd91e723-d553-11ed-ba76-fe7eeb2185fd
grant_number: '101071793'
name: 'Pushing from within: Control of cell shape, integrity and motility by cytoskeletal
pushing forces'
- _id: c08e9ad1-5a5b-11eb-8a69-9d1cf3b07473
grant_number: CZI01
name: Tools for automation and feedback microscopy
publication: Nature
publication_identifier:
eissn:
- 1476-4687
issn:
- 0028-0836
publication_status: epub_ahead
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
researchdata_availability: yes
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
supplementarymaterial: yes
title: Dynamic protrusions mediate crawling motility in Asgard archaea
tmp:
image: /images/cc_by.png
legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)
short: CC BY (4.0)
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
year: '2026'
...