Thermoproteati


Thermoproteati is a kingdom of archaea. Its synonym, "TACK", is an acronym for "Thaumarchaeota", "Aigarchaeota", "Crenarchaeota, and "Korarchaeota", the first groups discovered. They are found in different environments ranging from acidophilic thermophiles to mesophiles and psychrophiles and with different types of metabolism, predominantly anaerobic and chemosynthetic. Thermoproteati is a kingdom that is sister to the "Asgard" branch that gave rise to the eukaryotes. It has been proposed that the Thermoproteati kingdom be classified as "Crenarchaeota" and that the traditional "Crenarchaeota" be classified as a class called Sulfolobia, along with the other phyla with class rank or order. After including the kingdom category into ICNP, the only validly published name of this group is kingdom Thermoproteati.

Classification

The relationships are roughly as follows:

Eocyte hypothesis

The eocyte hypothesis proposed in the 1980s by James Lake suggests that eukaryotes emerged within the prokaryotic eocytes.
One piece of evidence supporting a close relationship between Thermoproteati and eukaryotes is the presence of a homolog of the RNA polymerase subunit Rbp-8 in Thermoproteota but not in "Euryarchaea".