The Archaeal Transcription Termination Factor aCPSF1 is a Robust Phylogenetic Marker for Archaeal Taxonomy

Archaea are highly diverse and represent a primary life domain, but the majority of them remain uncultured. Currently, 16S rRNA phylogeny is widely used in archaeal taxonomy and diversity surveys. However, highly conserved sequence of 16S rRNA possibly results in generation of chimera in the amplicons and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) and therefore limits its application. The newly developed phylogenomic approach has overcome these flaws, but it demands high-quality MAGs and intensive computation. In this study, we investigated the use of the archaeal transcription termination factor aCPSF1 in archaeal classification and diversity surveys. The phylogenetic analysis of 1,964 aCPSF1 orthologs retrieved from the available archaeal (meta)genomes resulted in convergent clustering patterns with those of archaeal phylogenomics and 16S rRNA phylogeny. The aCPSF1 phylogeny also displayed comparable clustering with the methanoarchaeal McrABG phylogeny and the haloarchaeal phylogenomics. Normalization of 779 aCPSF1 sequences including 261 from cultured archaeal species yielded a taxonomic ranking system with higher resolutions than that obtained with 16S rRNA for genus and species. Using the aCPSF1 taxonomy, 144 unclassified archaea in NCBI database were identified to various taxonomic ranks. Moreover, aCPSF1- and 16S rRNA-based surveys of the archaeal diversity in a sample from a South China Sea cold seep produced similar results. Our results demonstrate that aCPSF1 is an alternative archaeal phylogenetic marker, which exhibits higher resolution than 16S rRNA, and is more readily usable than phylogenomics in the taxonomic study of archaea. IMPORTANCE Archaea represent a unique type of prokaryote, which inhabit in various environments including extreme environments, and so define the boundary of biosphere, and play pivotal ecological roles, particularly in extreme environments. Since their discovery over 40 years ago, environmental archaea have been widely investigated using the 16S rRNA sequence comparison, and the recently developed phylogenomic approach because the majority of archaea are recalcitrant to laboratory cultivation. However, the highly conserved sequence of 16S rRNA and intensive bioinformatic computation of phylogenomics limit their applications in archaeal species delineation and diversity investigations. aCPSF1 is a ubiquitously distributed and vertically inherited transcription termination factor in archaea. In this study, we developed an aCPSF1-based archaeal taxonomic system which exhibits congruent phylogenic clustering patterns with archaeal phylogenomics and higher resolution than 16S rRNA in distinguishing archaea at lower taxonomic ranks. Therefore, aCPSF1 is a new phylogenetic marker in the taxonomic and diversity studies of archaea.