photoferrotrophy

traitmech:000193 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A metabolism in which anoxygenic phototrophs use light energy to oxidize Fe(II) as an electron donor for carbon fixation and biomass formation.

Trait evidence (3)

DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713
photoferrotrophic bacteria use light as energy and Fe(II) as an electron source for carbon fixation and biomass formation

Walter et al. directly describe the defining light-powered Fe(II)-donor physiology of photoferrotrophic bacteria.
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00323
reduced iron [Fe(II)] as an electron donor

Camacho et al. review Fe(II) as the inorganic electron donor used by photoferrotrophs during anoxygenic photosynthesis.
DOI:10.1128/JB.00776-06
that is necessary for phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation

Jiao & Newman discovered the R. palustris TIE-1 pio operon and showed that it is necessary for phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation.

Photoferrotrophy couples light to Fe(II) oxidation

Evidence-backed causal sketch linking light, Fe(II) oxidation, photosynthetic electron transport, and carbon fixation in photoferrotrophic metabolism.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures the shared light, Fe(II)-donor, Fe(III) product, and carbon-fixation processes. It stays process-level because lineage-specific PioABC, FoxEYZ, and Cyc2 branches do not yet have a reviewed or audit-verifiable exact UniProt protein example for this TraitRecord.

Edge evidence

photoferrotrophy has energy source light METPO:2007807
Photoferrotrophy uses light as the metabolism's energy source.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713 photoferrotrophic bacteria use light as energy Verified against the open Frontiers primary article full text.
photoferrotrophy has electron donor ferrous iron METPO:2007701
Fe(II) is the electron donor for photoferrotrophy.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00323 reduced iron [Fe(II)] as an electron donor Supports Fe(II) as the inorganic electron donor for anoxygenic photoferrotrophy.
light enables photosynthetic electron transport RO:0002327
Light powers the photosynthetic electron flow in photoferrotrophic metabolism.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713 photoferrotrophic bacteria use light as energy Supports light as the energetic input for the photoferrotrophic electron-transport chain.
ferrous iron feeds electrons into photosynthetic electron transport METPO:2007402
Fe(II) supplies electrons to anoxygenic photosynthetic electron transport in photoferrotrophs.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713 Fe(II) as an electron source for carbon fixation and biomass formation Supports ferrous iron as the electron source feeding photoferrotrophic carbon fixation.
ferrous iron oxidized to ferric iron METPO:2007405
Photoferrotrophy oxidizes Fe(II) to Fe(III).
- DOI:10.1128/JB.00776-06 phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation in Rhodopseudomonas palustris TIE-1 Supports Fe(II) oxidation by the model R. palustris TIE-1 photoferrotrophy system.
photosynthetic electron transport enables carbon fixation RO:0002327
Light-driven electron transport supports carbon fixation in photoferrotrophic metabolism.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713 Fe(II) as an electron source for carbon fixation Supports electron flow from Fe(II) into photoferrotrophic carbon fixation.
carbon dioxide fixed during carbon fixation
Photoferrotrophs assimilate inorganic carbon by carbon fixation.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00323 inorganic carbon is fixed into organic matter Supports carbon fixation during photoferrotrophic anoxygenic photosynthesis.
carbon fixation has output biomass RO:0002234
Carbon fixed during photoferrotrophy supports biomass formation.
- DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713 photoferrotrophic bacteria use light as energy and Fe(II) as an electron source for carbon fixation and biomass formation Supports biomass formation coupled to Fe(II)-fed photoferrotrophic metabolism.

Provenance

Identifier source: TraitMech local identifier
Definition source: DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713

Parent traits (2)

Synonyms (2)

phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation EXACT_SYNONYM · DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00713
anoxygenic phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation EXACT_SYNONYM · DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00323

kg-microbe context

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

Canonical examples (1)

Organisms cited as exemplars of this trait. Taxon ids are NCBITaxon and link out to the NCBI record.

Rhodopseudomonas palustris TIE-1 NCBITaxon:395960 DOI:10.1128/JB.00776-06 PioABC-model purple nonsulfur photoferrotroph.

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (2)

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

Resolve an exact external ontology class for photoferrotrophy before adding a TraitRecord xref.

CURATION TODO OPEN photoferrotrophy-xref-gap · raised by codex · 2026-09-14

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 pinned METPO snapshot has no active photoferrotrophy or anoxygenic phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation class. Candidate GO classes for photosynthesis, photosynthetic electron transport, and carbon fixation are broader than this Fe(II)-donor organismal metabolism, so no exact external class has yet been resolved.

Resolve a live, audit-clean UniProt protein example for a taxon-specific photoferrotrophy branch.

CURATION TODO OPEN photoferrotrophy-protein-example-gap · raised by codex · 2026-09-14

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.

R. palustris TIE-1 PioA and R. ferrooxidans SW2 FoxE have DOI-backed primary evidence, but their current exact UniProtKB accessions are unreviewed entries without live Proteomes cross-references. The first graph therefore stays process-level until a reviewed or audit-verifiable exact entry is available.