A new thylakoid-less and deeply diverged cyanobacterium isolated from a tropical hornwort

Cyanobacteria propelled the rise of oxygen and marked an epic transformation of life on earth. The early evolution of Cyanobacteria and oxygenic photosynthesis have been difficult to retrace, partly because very few extant representatives are available from Gloeobacteria, an isolated lineage that is sister to the rest of Cyanobacteria. Here, a new and deeply diverged species of Gloeobacteria was discovered. This new species exhibits a suite of unique morphological, physiological, and genomic features, and thus might represent one of the key missing links to piece together the major transitions in cyanobacterial evolution