TraitMech

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karyoklepty

traitmech:000630 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A physiological phenotype in which a microbial organism selectively retains and uses nuclei acquired from prey.

Trait evidence (3)

  • DOI:10.1038/nature05496
    Cytokinesis, plastid performance and their replication are dependent on recurrent stealing of cryptophyte nuclei.

    PMID:17251979. Direct scientific abstract from Europe PMC, cross-checked with the publisher abstract. This naming study reports retained, transcriptionally active prey nuclei in Myrionecta rubra, a synonym of Mesodinium rubrum. The plastid-related dependence is system-specific, not a universal definition requirement. Main text, figures and supplements were not accessed; no protein-resolved mechanism is imported.

  • DOI:10.1186/s12864-015-2052-9
    Rather, the ciliate steals the nucleus from cryptophyte prey, a process described as karyoklepty

    PMID:26475598, PMC4609049. Direct Background naming passage, not an abstract quote or independent terminology experiment. Scientific Abstract and Background were read. The abstract reports prey-derived transcription after sequestration; expression and annotation are not native protein perturbations. Methods, Results, actual figures and supplements were not audited, so no additional canonical strain or causal edge is asserted from this study.

  • DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00423
    Well-fed cells of M. rubrum contained additional nuclei of cryptophyte origin.

    PMID:28377747, PMC5359308. Direct Results passage. Main text and actual Figures 2-5 and 9 were inspected; supplements were not. Fixed-cell microscopy documents retained central and peripheral prey nuclei during starvation/refeeding. Figure 9 is an inheritance model with illustrative micrographs, not continuous lineage tracking. Carbon fixation correlates with nuclear prevalence; starvation is not an isolated nuclear perturbation.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1038/nature05496

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.

  • Mesodinium rubrum NCBITaxon:704171 DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00423 Qualified example: MBL-DK2009 fed Teleaulax amphioxeia SCCAP K-0434. The Cultures Methods at https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00423 document single-cell isolation from Helsingor harbor, Denmark, in 2009. Retention is conditional on feeding history; do not generalize nuclear inheritance to every strain. NCBI ESearch and EFetch independently resolved the species and its Myrionecta rubra synonym on 2026-10-05.

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 prey-nucleus use distinct from plastid retention and sequence transfer.

CURATION TODO OPEN karyoklepty-organismal-scope-and-parent · raised by codex · 2026-10-05

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 physiological trait is not a literal nucleus, nucleomorph or sequence feature. Whole living prey/endosymbionts, DNA detection and horizontal transfer alone are insufficient. Kleptoplasty traitmech:000629 concerns plastids; phagocytosis traitmech:000627 concerns uptake; phagotrophy traitmech:000628 concerns nutrient assimilation. Endosymbiosis traitmech:000045 describes a microorganism living inside its host, not selective nuclear retention. These overlapping concepts are not exact equivalents or established universal parents. Retain phenotype METPO:1000059 pending a closer acquisition hierarchy. No fixed retention time, nuclear division, fusion, host-genome integration or universal photosynthetic role is required. No unverified synonym or ontology xref is asserted.

Resolve functional control and inheritance without promoting models to mechanisms.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN karyoklepty-control-and-inheritance-mechanism · raised by codex · 2026-10-05

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 2017 study discusses strain-dependent alternatives to nuclear division and fusion. Its snapshots do not establish a universal inheritance mechanism. The 2007 abstract supports transcriptional function, but source-specific retention intervals and plastid dependencies are not class restrictions. Protein identities and host-control machinery remain unresolved here; no causal graph is asserted from transcript abundance, inferred targeting or nuclear enlargement alone.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Added karyoklepty with three DOI-backed snippets and a natural, strain-qualified Mesodinium example. Ignored-and-hidden searches and pinned METPO review found no exact record. Reserved METPO:1058300 in v506. Distinguished prey-nucleus retention/use from plastid retention, intact endosymbionts and sequence transfer; deferred unresolved control and inheritance mechanisms.