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oersted 26 minutes ago

That’s interesting. The main difference seems to be that those other tiny organisms only encode how to produce some metabolic products for the host but cannot reproduce independently, so they are quite close to being organelles. Instead, this new one pretty much only produces the proteins it needs to reproduce and nothing for the host.

The new one with 238 kbp:

> Sukunaarchaeum encodes the barest minimum of proteins for its own replication, and that’s about all. Most strangely, its genome is missing any hints of the genes required to process and build molecules, outside of those needed to reproduce.

Referencing the 159 kbp one:

> However, these and other super-small bacteria have metabolic genes to produce nutrients, such as amino acids and vitamins, for their hosts. Instead, their genome has cast off much of their ability to reproduce on their own.