The glycosylation of asparagine residues is the predominant protein modification in all three domains of life. An oligosaccharide chain is preassembled on a lipid-phospho carrier and transferred onto asparagine residues by the action of a membrane-bound enzyme, oligosaccharyltransferase. The oligosaccharide donor for the oligosaccharyl transfer reaction is dolichol-diphosphate-oligosaccharide in Eukaryota and polyprenol-diphosphate-oligosaccharide in Eubacteria. The donor in some archaeal species was reportedly dolichol-monophosphate-oligosaccharide. Thus, the difference in the number of phosphate groups aroused interest in whether the use of the dolichol-monophosphate type donors is widespread in the domain Archaea. Currently, all of the archaeal species with identified oligosaccharide donors have belonged to the phylum Euryarchaeota. Here, we analyzed the donor structures of two species belonging to the phylum Crenarchaeota, Pyrobaculum calidifontis and Sulfolobus solfataricus, in addition to two species from the Euryarchaeota, Pyrococcus furiosus and Archaeoglobus fulgidus. The electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry analyses confirmed that the two euryarchaeal oligosaccharide donors were the dolichol-monophosphate type and newly revealed that the two crenarchaeal oligosaccharide donors were the dolichol-diphosphate type. This novel finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the ancestor of Eukaryota is rooted within the TACK (Thaum-, Aig-, Cren-, and Korarchaeota) superphylum, which includes Crenarchaea. Our comprehensive study also revealed that one archaeal species could contain two distinct oligosaccharide donors for the oligosaccharyl transfer reaction. The A. fulgidus cells contained two oligosaccharide donors bearing oligosaccharide moieties with different backbone structures, and the S. solfataricus cells contained two oligosaccharide donors bearing stereochemically different dolichol chains.The glycosylation of asparagine residues is the predominant protein modification throughout all three domains of life (1-3). The oligosaccharides attached to asparagine residues in glycoproteins (N-glycan) affect various properties of the proteins, including folding, conformation, solubility, and antigenicity. Carbohydrate-binding proteins, such as lectins, recognize the N-glycans. Within the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum in eukaryotic cells, the N-glycan functions as a quality control tag in the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (4). The N-glycosylation occurs in the consensus motif (referred to as the sequon) represented by Asn-Xaa-Ser/Thr, where Xaa can be any residue except Pro. The formation of the N-glycosidic bond, between the monosaccharide residue at the reducing end of an oligosaccharide and the side chain amide group of the asparagine residues in proteins, is catalyzed by a membranebound enzyme, oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) 2 (3). The eukaryotic OST enzyme is a multisubunit protein complex. Among the eight different membrane subunit proteins, the catalytic subunit is a po...