BioConcepts

LUCALUCA (ger.)

• (abbr.) Last Universal Common Ancestor.
  category phylogenesis see also protogenote

  1993

  [The nature of the last universal ancestor and the root of the tree of life

  Forterre, P. et al. (1993). The nature of the last universal ancestor and the root of the tree of life, still open questions. Biosystems 28, 15-32.]

  1997

  Studying Archaea has always been considered a step towards the reconstruction of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA).

  Forterre, P. (1997). Archaea: What can we learn from their sequences? Current Opin. Genet. Dev. 7, 764-770: 767.

  1999

  The concept of Archaea (formerly Archaebacteria), introduced by Carl Woese at the end of the seventies, raised the hope that studying this third form of life on earth would help to reconstitute the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) to all living organisms.

  Forterre, P. & Philippe, H. (1999). The last universal common ancestor (LUCA), simple or complex? Biol. Bull. 196, 373-377: 373.

  2008

  LUCA does not appear to have been a simple, primitive, hyperthermophilic prokaryote but rather a complex community of protoeukaryotes with a RNA genome, adapted to a broad range of moderate temperatures, genetically redundant, morphologically and metabolically diverse.

  Glansdorff, N., Xu, Y. & Labedan, B. (2008). The Last Universal Common Ancestor. Emergence, constitution and genetic legacy of an elusive forerunner. Biology Direct 2008, 3:29.