Archaeal imaging: leading the hunt for new discoveries

Abstract

Since the identification of the archaeal domain in the mid-1970s, we have collected a great deal of metagenomic, biochemical, and structural information from archaeal species. However, there is still little known about how archaeal cells organize their internal cellular components in space and time. In contrast, live-cell imaging has allowed bacterial and eukaryotic cell biologists to learn a lot about biological processes by observing the motions of cells, the dynamics of their internal organelles, and even the motions of single molecules. The explosion of knowledge gained via live-cell imaging in prokaryotes and eukaryotes has motivated an ever-improving set of imaging technologies that could allow analogous explorations into archaeal biology. Furthermore, previous studies of essential biological processes in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms give methodological roadmaps for the investigation of similar processes in archaea. In this perspective, we highlight a few fundamental cellular processes in archaea, reviewing our current state of understanding about each, and compare how imaging approaches helped to advance the study of similar processes in bacteria and eukaryotes.