formaldehyde

CHEBI:16842 ·resolve ·BIOCIDE ·EXACT SEEDED

An aldehyde resulting from the formal oxidation of methanol. — ChEBI

Machine-generated and unreviewed. Identity, structure and cross-references come straight from ChEBI's and CARD's own data; no curator has signed off on this record yet.

Classification

Strictly broader compounds or drug classes this molecule belongs to.

Label unavailable CHEBI:17478
Label unavailable CHEBI:64708

Chemical structure

Computed structure properties
Molecular formula	CH2O
Charge	0
Average mass	30.026 Da
Monoisotopic mass	30.01056 Da
Source	ChEBI
InChIKey	WSFSSNUMVMOOMR-UHFFFAOYSA-N

SMILES

[H]C([H])=O

InChI

InChI=1S/CH2O/c1-2/h1H2

Also called

FORMALDEHYDE (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
FORMALIN (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Formaldehyd (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Formaldehyde (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Formalin (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Methanal (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Methylene oxide (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Oxomethane (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Oxomethylene (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi

Cross-references

Identifiers for this same structure in other resources. An accession that lands on two different structures in this corpus is withheld from both rather than shown here, since it names at most one of them.

Drug registries

Identifiers that name a drug rather than a structure. One of these can cover a parent compound, its salts and its stereoisomers, which this corpus keeps as separate records, so it is not an equivalence of structure.

Patents and articles

Documents about this compound. A patent covers a class and an article covers a topic; neither identifies a structure.

wikipedia.en:Formaldehyde

Activity roles

Every antimicrobial role a source asserts for this compound — the unreduced evidence behind its antimicrobial_class.

disinfectant CHEBI:48219

Source concepts

Every upstream concept that resolved to this record. The merge is the product: this is what shows ChEBI and CARD are describing the same structure.

Upstream concepts merged into this record
Source	Native ID	Label	Minted CURIE	Version
CHEBI	`CHEBI:16842`	formaldehyde	`antibioticmech:chebi-9a807a979b`	2026-08-30

Resistance mechanisms

2 source-backed resistance determinants or associations, with ARO grounding where reported. Grouped by reported mechanism type.

OTHER 1

OTHER
Determinant	ARO ID	Organism	Gene families	Evidence
Context-dependent EfgA-associated formaldehyde resistance Native PA1-derived laboratory comparisons link loss of EfgA function to growth with externally supplied formaldehyde. This is not universal protection: EfgA was beneficial under endogenous formaldehyde stress. The study baseline CM2730 is already a laboratory derivative, not unmodified PA1. Reference-only UniProtKB:P0DX96 does not identify the tested alleles. Growth and translation responses are not MIC or clinical resistance categories; phenotypic heterogeneity remains distinct from this genotype association.	—	Methylorubrum extorquens `NCBITaxon:408` Mext_4158	EfgA	PMID:34038406 (DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001208. Native functional comparisons in Results and Figure 3; endogenous-stress and tolerance limits in Figures 9-10; Figure 13 and Discussion. Qualitative gene-level scope; no exact allele or genome assignment.) UniProtKB:P0DX96 (Reference identity only: efgA / Mext_4158; reviewed UniProtKB 2026_03, entry 8, sequence 1. PA1 NCBITaxon:419610 is reference context, not a tested-derivative TaxID. Species NCBITaxon:408 independently checked through UniProt taxonomy.) Comparative laboratory growth assays

UNKNOWN 1

UNKNOWN
Determinant	ARO ID	Organism	Gene families	Evidence
Conditional EfgB-associated formaldehyde resistance The primary study supports a conditional EfgB contribution in EfgA-altered PA1-derived laboratory backgrounds; EfgB changes alone did not confer growth in the sole-formaldehyde-carbon comparison. The adenylate/guanylate cyclase annotation is putative, not demonstrated biochemical activity. Two dated UniProt queries returned no reference candidate; this is not evidence that the gene or protein is absent. No MIC, clinical category, exact allele, protein accession or experimental genome is assigned.	—	Methylorubrum extorquens `NCBITaxon:408` Mext_0606	EfgB	PMID:34038406 (DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001208. Results, EfgB plays a secondary role in formaldehyde resistance; negative comparison in Figure 3 and conditional comparison in Figure 5. Supplement-only claims are not curated.) NCBITaxon:408 (Species identity checked through UniProt taxonomy on 2026-10-14, release 2026_03. The PA1 reference lineage does not resolve the tested laboratory derivatives as a single strain or genome.) Comparative laboratory growth assays

Curation history

SEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Seeded from data/raw/ inventories (CHEBI)
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-09-10 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories
CURATED_RESISTANCE_EVIDENCE 2026-10-14 · codex · LLM-assisted
Added primary-backed, context-limited EfgA and EfgB formaldehyde resistance claims. Preserved the opposing endogenous-stress result and negative EfgB comparison. Grounded species identity through UniProt taxonomy while keeping P0DX96 and its PA1 lineage reference-only. No exact experimental allele, protein, strain TaxID, genome, numeric AST, sequence, construct or protocol was assigned. Whole-record review remains open.

Provenance

Seeded by scripts/seed_from_sources.py from the committed inventories in data/raw/. View the record (YAML).

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