fungal nematode egg parasitism

traitmech:000726 · CLASS · PROPOSED

An animal-pathogenic phenotype in which a fungus infects nematode eggs by penetrating their eggshells and colonizing their interiors.

Trait evidence (3)

DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.617710
The egg-pathogenic fungus Purpureocillium lilacinum parasitizes on nematode eggs

Xu et al. 2021, PMID:33897634, PMCID:PMC8058359, scientific Abstract; direct JATS match and native VERIFIED. Own JZD02 experiment, Methods and actual Figure 1 A-C support infection of Meloidogyne incognita eggs. Supplementary Table 1 defines infection by hyphal penetration through an individual egg, not mere surface contact. Its 30-hour printed mean disagrees with the replicate counts; no numerical infection rates are adopted. The 6-hour control and 42-hour infected transcriptomes differ in time and include mixed infection stages. Expression associations are not causal protein evidence.
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2016.01084
Infected eggs by P. lilacinum 36-1.

Xie et al. 2016, PMID:27486440, PMCID:PMC4949223, Figure 5 caption, panel B; actual panels A-C and Methods/Results inspected. P. lilacinum denotes Purpureocillium lilacinum. Direct JATS match; native NOT_IN_ABSTRACT is retained. This is its own 36-1 infection experiment, not a repetition of Xu's citation. Eggs were supplied as the only nourishment for the reported 24-hour comparison, but microscopy does not quantify nutrient assimilation. RNA-seq replicates were pooled; gene homology and expression do not demonstrate a required effector.
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.617710
Infection defined by Purpureocillium lilacinum mycelium penetrating through the whole individual Meloidogyne incognita egg

Xu et al. 2021, Supplementary Table 1 footnote, Table_1.DOCX from the PMC8058359 Europe PMC supplementaryFiles archive. Direct DOCX text match and complete rendered page inspected; native NOT_IN_ABSTRACT is retained. This operational scoring criterion supports individual-egg penetration, not another independent experiment or a direct nutrient-flux measurement. The two Xu excerpts total 23 words. The printed 30-hour mean discrepancy remains unresolved; no infection rate is imported.

Provenance

Identifier source: TraitMech local identifier
Definition source: DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.617710

Parent traits (1)

animal pathogen METPO:1004002

kg-microbe context

No kg-microbe node embedding matched this record in the 2026-04-25 deepwalk.

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (3)

Open questions attached to this trait. Seeded by just knowledge-gap-scan and curated; see the corpus-wide index.

Refine the egg-infection hierarchy without conflating infection, feeding and hatching endpoints.

CURATION TODO OPEN fungal-nematode-egg-parasitism-scope-and-hierarchy · raised by codex · 2026-10-14

Not yet attached to a section of this record — a curator sets attaches_to (e.g. causal_graphs#some_edge) so the gap shows beside the mechanism it concerns.

The fungal bearer penetrates eggshells and colonizes egg interiors. Surface attachment, egg-hatching inhibition, killing, trapping or a gene annotation alone is insufficient. Animal pathogen METPO:1004002 is active below pathogenic to host METPO:1004000 and phenotype METPO:1000059. Its pinned organism-like wording is clarified as a phenotype in current upstream METPO; the local parent is not rewritten. Nematode egg infection does not entail mammalian pathogenicity. Xie describes this fungus as nematophagous, but the operational infection endpoint does not quantify feeding: fungal nematophagy traitmech:000719 requires consumption and also includes dead prey. It is related, not an asserted parent here. Local parasitism traitmech:000043 inherits persistent symbiosis, which is not required. No organism-level disjointness, obligacy, exclusive host stage or universal host range is asserted. Bare egg parasitism does not specify the fungal actor and is not an exact synonym.

Review the proposed class without reviving the obsolete parasitism identifier.

CURATION TODO OPEN fungal-nematode-egg-parasitism-metpo-assessment · raised by codex · 2026-10-14

Not yet attached to a section of this record — a curator sets attaches_to (e.g. causal_graphs#some_edge) so the gap shows beside the mechanism it concerns.

No exact active counterpart was identified in the inspected pinned/current releases, editor and template owners. Historical METPO:1000227 obsolete parasitism is broader, deprecated, under ObsoleteClass with OMO:0001000 reason and no replacement or consider annotation in those releases. METPO issue 521 disputes mechanically assigned reasons; the code neither invalidates the biology nor authorizes reuse. The historical ID is not revived or placed in xrefs. Fried-egg colony is unrelated. The ontology pin remains unchanged; v602 proposes this narrower infection phenotype with PROPOSED status and no equivalent external xref.

Resolve source inconsistencies and strain provenance before adding rates, examples or causal mechanisms.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN fungal-nematode-egg-parasitism-evidence-limits · raised by codex · 2026-10-14

Not yet attached to a section of this record — a curator sets attaches_to (e.g. causal_graphs#some_edge) so the gap shows beside the mechanism it concerns.

Xu Supplementary Table 1 reports a 30-hour mean of 38% for replicates 38%, 33% and 33%, whose arithmetic mean is about 34.7%. This discrepancy is preserved, not silently corrected. Its main Methods sample-level wording is less precise than the supplement's individual-egg penetration criterion. No rates or infection threshold are curated. Xie's conserved appressorium genes also occur in fungi lacking that structure; neither gene inventory nor differential expression establishes this trait or a protein-resolved mechanism. No causal graph, protein example or canonical taxon is asserted without further authority and strain-provenance checks. Microscopy and source-designated infection are not tracer measurements of nutrient flux. No field efficacy or safety claim follows. Source hashes, inspected figures/supplement, actual snippet verdicts and bounded notice checks are retained in the verification sidecar; no comprehensive correction/retraction clearance is claimed. Both counted primary experiments concern Purpureocillium lilacinum (JZD02 and 36-1). The fungal actor class is not evidence that this phenotype was experimentally demonstrated across fungal species; additional species require their own evidence.

Curation history

2026-10-14T11:46:22Z · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex
Added fungal nematode egg parasitism with two primary DOI sources and directly matched nine-word and six-word excerpts. Preserved native VERIFIED/NOT_IN_ABSTRACT outcomes and the supplement's inconsistent mean; no rates or sequence-derived mechanism imported. Reserved 000726, v602 and 1067900-1067999 after ignored/hidden current-copy, retained-history and open/draft PR checks, including full-content proposal ranges. Wheel sizes and broad editor envelopes are not conflicting reservations. Animal-pathogen parent scope checked against pinned/current ontology. Other records unchanged; timestamp records observed acceptance.
2026-10-14T12:50:22Z · CLARIFY_EVIDENCE · codex
Addressed issue #1931 after the approving PR review: added a directly matched 14-word supplementary penetration criterion and explicitly limited the two primary experiments to one fungal species. Xu quotations total 23 words; the extra excerpt is not a third independent experiment. Retained native NOT_IN_ABSTRACT, original minting history, definition, parent, source discrepancy and PROPOSED status.

Recorded curation sessions

2026-10-14T11:53:48Z · codex
- CREATE — Add fungal nematode egg parasitism
  Added one PROPOSED fungal egg-infection phenotype with eggshell penetration and internal colonization. Xu 2021 supplies definition authority and Xie 2016 a distinct primary experiment. Direct nine-word and six-word excerpts retain native VERIFIED and NOT_IN_ABSTRACT results. Actual figures and Xu Supplementary Table 1 were inspected; its inconsistent 30-hour mean is retained as a limitation, not a curated rate. No protein mechanism is inferred from sequence or expression. No canonical taxa, exact synonyms, equivalent xrefs, obligacy, universal host range, field efficacy or safety claims. Ignored/hidden current-copy, retained-history and open/draft PR checks identified no exact counterpart in documented scope. Wheel byte sizes and broad editor envelopes were adjudicated as non-reservations. Reserved 000726, v602 and the full 1067900-1067999 block; the trait timestamp records acceptance, this event later CREATE. Existing records and protected spore germination remain unchanged.
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2026-10-14T12:53:18Z · codex
- EDIT — Clarify fungal nematode egg-parasitism evidence
  Addressed the two optional evidence-presentation suggestions in the approving review of head 418a9676293fb665baf8810617a6d06646e742fc. Added a directly matched 14-word criterion from Xu Supplementary Table 1; the two Xu excerpts total 23 words, and the native verdict remains NOT_IN_ABSTRACT. This is a scoring criterion from the same experiment, not a third independent study. Explicitly stated that both counted primary experiments concern Purpureocillium lilacinum JZD02 and 36-1; no experimentally demonstrated cross-species breadth follows from the fungal class. Preserved original evidence, minting history, definition, parent, proposal TSV, PROPOSED status and source-rate discrepancy. Append-only predecessor history and review bundles remain unchanged. This is a scoped evidence enhancement, not a newly discovered blocking identity defect.
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