In a study that started during my postdoc at @deemteam.bsky.social, we chart the presences and absences of SMC complex subunits across ~180 diverse and representative eukaryotes, and delve into their deep prokaryotic origins. (2/6)

Our comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses reveal that the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) had virtually all subunits known in modern eukaryotes. Interestingly, condensin II was lost 30+ times, highlighting a complex evolutionary path. (3/6)