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heterothallism

traitmech:000610 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A fungal phenotype in which sexual reproduction requires a separate, compatible mating partner.

Trait evidence (3)

  • DOI:10.1038/nature07528
    The species has a heterothallic breeding system; isolates of complementary mating types are required for sex to occur.

    O'Gorman et al. (2009), PMID:19043401. Exact scientific-abstract sentence retrieved from Europe PMC core metadata; the publisher abstract was also read. Aspergillus fumigatus produced cleistothecia and ascospores, with recombination between mating type and DNA fingerprint markers in progeny from an Irish environmental subpopulation. This is observed sexual-cycle evidence, not an inference from MAT genes alone. Full methods, figures, supplements and individual isolate provenance remain uninspected; no canonical strain or universal compatibility is asserted. The historical teleomorph name in this abstract is not used as a current taxonomy mapping.

  • DOI:10.1534/genetics.111.136358
    Coexpression of pre-2 and ccg-4 in the mat A background leads to self-attraction and development of barren perithecia without ascospores.

    Kim et al. (2012), PMID:22298702. Exact scientific-abstract sentence directly retrieved from Europe PMC core metadata. Neurospora crassa experiments distinguish receptor/pheromone identity from completion of sexual reproduction. The quoted engineered coexpression phenotype is not self-fertility; attraction and fruiting-body initiation alone are insufficient readouts. Forced heterokaryon experiments require mating-type genes in different nuclei for meiosis and sexual sporulation in this study, not a universal fungal architecture. Full text, figures, strain provenance and supplements remain uninspected after PMC access challenges and a full-text API error. This citation supports readout limits, not an independent natural canonical example or a protein-resolved causal graph.

  • DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1006981
    Heterothallic progeny can mate only with homothallic strains, and progeny also segregate 50% homothallic, 50% heterothallic.

    Yun et al. (2017), PMID:28892488. Exact sentence of scientific abstract abstract1 in PMC5608430 full-text XML, distinct from the author summary. Chromocrea spinulosa includes self-fertile and partner-dependent strains: self-sterile here does not mean unable to reproduce sexually with a compatible partner. The stated compatibility and segregation are source-specific, not requirements for all heterothallic fungi. Strain/culture Methods and Conclusions were also read. Cs23 and Cs27 natural provenance, most experiments, actual figures and supplements remain unverified. Nuclear-level heterothallic recognition within a self-fertile organism is not organism-level partner dependence. No canonical example is inferred from unstable Cs27-derived MAT transformants or from reference-strain labels.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1038/nature07528

Parent traits (1)

kg-microbe context

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

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (2)

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

Keep partner dependence distinct from sterility and nuclear recognition.

CURATION TODO OPEN heterothallism-trait-scope · raised by codex · 2026-10-04

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.

This is an organism-level reproductive phenotype, not a sequence feature or MAT-gene inventory. It requires a compatible partner, not exactly two mating types throughout fungi or compatibility with every other isolate. Self-sterility alone can also denote general infertility; resolve lexical scope before adding exact synonyms or external xrefs. Homothallism, heterokaryosis, ploidy, hyphal fusion and parasexuality are not is-a parents. Nuclear recognition within a self-fertile individual does not establish partner dependence at the organism level. PHYSIOLOGY is a filesystem category, not an ontology parent. Do not infer absence from an unsuccessful cross under one set of culture conditions.

Verify natural isolates and complete-cycle evidence before expanding the record.

CURATION TODO OPEN heterothallism-examples-and-mechanism · raised by codex · 2026-10-04

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.

Read the uninspected methods, figures and supplements and resolve natural strain provenance and active taxonomy before adding canonical examples. Separate completed meiosis and sexual progeny from attraction, hyphal fusion, fruiting-body initiation and MAT sequence content. Resolve native protein accessions and experimental dependencies before adding mechanistic edges; do not use a NONMECHANISTIC graph to bypass unresolved grounding. Preserve actual abstract-resolver verdicts separately from manual source-section checks.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Added heterothallism with three primary DOI-backed sources and exact scientific-abstract snippets. Separated partner dependence from general infertility, MAT content and incomplete sexual readouts. Ignored-and-hidden novelty searches and structured METPO review found no exact record. Reserved METPO:1056400 in v487 under released phenotype. Deferred natural canonical examples, lexical mappings and protein-resolved graphs.