TraitMech

TraitMech › MORPHOLOGY

ferrosome

traitmech:000527 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A morphology trait in which a bacterial cell forms membrane-bound ferrosome organelles that store intracellular iron as non-crystalline iron phosphate biomineral.

Trait evidence (5)

  • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x
    Overall, this work establishes ferrosomes as a new class of iron storage organelles

    Grant et al. establish ferrosomes as an iron-storage organelle class.

  • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x
    we identify three ferrosome-associated (Fez) proteins that are responsible for forming ferrosomes

    Grant et al. support Fez protein-dependent ferrosome formation in Desulfovibrio magneticus.

  • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x
    fez operons are sufficient for ferrosome formation in foreign hosts

    Grant et al. support fez operon sufficiency for ferrosome formation in heterologous bacterial hosts.

  • DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06719-9
    Here we report that C. difficile undergoes an intracellular iron biomineralization process and stores iron in membrane-bound ferrosome organelles containing non-crystalline iron phosphate biominerals.

    Pi et al. support membrane-bound ferrosome organelles storing non-crystalline iron phosphate in Clostridioides difficile.

  • DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06719-9
    We found that a membrane protein (FezA) and a P1B6-ATPase transporter (FezB), repressed by both iron and the ferric uptake regulator Fur, are required for ferrosome formation

    Pi et al. support FezA- and FezB-dependent ferrosome formation in C. difficile.

Fez proteins form iron-storing ferrosomes

Evidence-backed causal sketch linking Fez-dependent formation to membrane-bound iron-storage organelles.

NONMECHANISTIC · The graph captures broad Fez-dependent formation and ferrosome iron storage at process and organelle level without asserting one taxon-universal Fez component roster, individual Fez-protein activity, accession-level protein examples, iron-remobilization mechanism, membrane-localization path, iron-deficiency trigger, or host-colonization output.

Fez proteins form iron-storing ferrosomes Interactive directed graph showing evidence-backed causal relationships for ferrosome.

Edge evidence

  • ferrosome formation has output ferrosome RO:0002234

    Fez-dependent ferrosome formation produces the ferrosome intracellular organelle.

    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x Overall, this work establishes ferrosomes as a new class of iron storage organelles Grant et al. establish ferrosomes as an iron-storage organelle class.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x we identify three ferrosome-associated (Fez) proteins that are responsible for forming ferrosomes Grant et al. support Fez protein-dependent ferrosome formation in Desulfovibrio magneticus.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x fez operons are sufficient for ferrosome formation in foreign hosts Grant et al. support fez operon sufficiency for ferrosome formation in heterologous bacterial hosts.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06719-9 We found that a membrane protein (FezA) and a P1B6-ATPase transporter (FezB), repressed by both iron and the ferric uptake regulator Fur, are required for ferrosome formation Pi et al. support FezA- and FezB-dependent ferrosome formation in C. difficile.
  • non-crystalline iron phosphate biomineral located in ferrosome biolink:located_in

    Non-crystalline iron phosphate biominerals are stored within ferrosome organelles.

    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06719-9 Here we report that C. difficile undergoes an intracellular iron biomineralization process and stores iron in membrane-bound ferrosome organelles containing non-crystalline iron phosphate biominerals. Pi et al. support membrane-bound ferrosome organelles storing non-crystalline iron phosphate in Clostridioides difficile.
  • ferrosome enables iron storage RO:0002327

    Ferrosome organelles realize intracellular iron storage.

    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x Overall, this work establishes ferrosomes as a new class of iron storage organelles Grant et al. establish ferrosomes as an iron-storage organelle class.
    • DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06719-9 Here we report that C. difficile undergoes an intracellular iron biomineralization process and stores iron in membrane-bound ferrosome organelles containing non-crystalline iron phosphate biominerals. Pi et al. support membrane-bound ferrosome organelles storing non-crystalline iron phosphate in Clostridioides difficile.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04741-x

Parent traits (1)

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.

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (1)

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

Resolve exact external ontology xrefs for the bacterial ferrosome morphology trait.

CURATION TODO OPEN ferrosome-xref-gap · raised by codex · 2026-10-01

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 METPO, GO, or OBO class was accepted for the organism-level ferrosome morphology trait. GO:0110143 magnetosome, GO:0031411 gas vesicle, GO:0031470 carboxysome, and GO:0070088 PHA granule are sibling organelles or inclusions rather than ferrosome equivalents.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Minted ferrosome as a DOI-backed MORPHOLOGY TraitRecord under the intracellular inclusion parent after an ignored-and-hidden duplicate review found no exact same-scope TraitMech, METPO, history, or prior proposal record; the replacement placeholder is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v404.