TraitMech

TraitMech › PHYSIOLOGY

nucleophagy

traitmech:000643 · CLASS · PROPOSED

An autophagy phenotype in which a microbial cell degrades parts of its nucleus or an entire nucleus by delivering nuclear material to lysosomal or vacuolar compartments.

Trait evidence (5)

  • DOI:10.1091/mbc.e02-08-0483
    During PMN, teardrop-like blebs are pinched from the nucleus, released into the vacuole lumen, and degraded by soluble hydrolases.

    PMID:12529432, PMC140233. Scientific Abstract directly read in Europe PMC with matching DOI. Saccharomyces cerevisiae nuclear portions undergo selective microautophagic turnover; Nvj1 degradation supports flux, not just bleb formation. The reported apg7-delta independence was revised by the 2008 follow-up, so it is not a universal absence-of-ATG requirement. Full-text retrieval failed; Methods, actual figures and strain provenance were not inspected.

  • DOI:10.1091/mbc.e08-04-0363
    We conclude that a spectrum of ATG genes is required for the terminal vacuole enclosure and fusion stages of PMN.

    PMID:18701704, PMC2555948. Scientific Abstract directly read in Europe PMC with matching DOI. Two biochemical assays revise the older PMN dependence claim: atg mutants form blebs but rarely release vesicles into the vacuole. Formation, terminal enclosure and degradation are distinct readouts. This is a yeast PMN result, not a gene-inventory definition of all nucleophagy. Full-text retrieval returned HTTP 500; complete Methods and actual figures were not inspected.

  • DOI:10.1007/s00284-024-03838-y
    These results indicate that nuclei are engulfed in the autophagosomes as a whole and transported/released into the vacuolar lumen where they are degraded.

    PMID:39162852, PMC11335778. Scientific Abstract directly read in Europe PMC; matching-DOI XML Methods Sec3/Sec6, Results Sec11/Sec12 and Discussion Sec13 read. Aspergillus oryzae H2B-EGFP processing and Atg1/Atg8/Ypt7/Atg15 perturbations distinguish whole-nucleus uptake, fusion and degradation. Residual carbon-starvation cleavage and possible sample-preparation proteolysis limit interpretation; complementation was incomplete. RIB40 was the DNA donor, not the assayed NSRku70-derived host; Aspergillus nidulans supplied the reporter, not the phenotype. Receptor speculation includes unpublished data. Figure captions, not actual figures or supplements, were inspected.

  • DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0033270
    infection-associated nuclear degeneration in M. oryzae instead occurs by non-selective macroautophagy, which is necessary for rice blast disease.

    PMID:22448240, PMC3308974. Scientific Abstract directly read in Europe PMC and PLOS. Results on nuclear degeneration and macroautophagy were read. H1-RFP imaging and Atg1/Atg4 perturbations support infection-associated nuclear loss; MoVac8/MoTsc13 are dispensable for it. Some selective-autophagy mutant comparisons are data not shown. The 2024 study's Discussion includes this route under nucleophagy; retain that attributed usage, not a yeast PMN assignment. Actual figures, full Methods and independent strain provenance were not inspected.

  • DOI:10.1242/jcs.133090
    A selective form of autophagy, known as nucleophagy, can be used to accomplish the degradation of nucleus-derived material.

    PMID:24013549. Scientific Abstract directly read in Europe PMC with matching DOI. This is a review supporting terminology, not an independent experiment. Its selective formulation is narrower than the 2024 Discussion's inclusion of nonselective Magnaporthe nuclear degradation. Preserve that scope question explicitly rather than imposing selectivity universally. Full text and poster were not inspected.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1007/s00284-024-03838-y

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.

Review nuclear-cargo scope and source-specific selectivity.

CURATION TODO OPEN nucleophagy-cargo-route-and-selectivity · raised by codex · 2026-10-06

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.

Include nuclear portions and entire nuclei, micro and macro routes. The 2013 review defines nucleophagy as selective, whereas the 2024 Discussion includes the 2012 nonselective Magnaporthe route. The present cargo-defined phenotype does not require universal selectivity; preserve this attributed difference for human review. GO:0044804, resolved at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/QuickGO/services/ontology/go/terms/GO%3A0044804, is nonobsolete and includes nuclear parts or entire nuclei without an explicit selectivity restriction. Its biological process scope is not an exact organismal-phenotype xref. The autophagy parent traitmech:000638 is corrected to intracellular cargo in this change (#1754). Nuclear-envelope overlap with ER-phagy traitmech:000642 does not make the records equivalent. No exact synonyms or SSSOM mapping are asserted. Nuclear damage, loss of fluorescence or DNA degradation alone does not prove autophagic delivery and flux.

Resolve native exemplars and route-specific mechanisms.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN nucleophagy-flux-exemplars-and-mechanism · raised by codex · 2026-10-06

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 microbial cell carrying out degradation has the phenotype, not a bacterium eliciting an animal-host response. Whole-nucleus turnover in multinucleate cells need not cause cell death. Do not equate blebs, puncta, inhibited autophagic bodies, gene presence or partial rate reductions with completed flux or total absence. The 2003/2008 PMN dependence conflict needs full-text assay reconciliation before protein-resolved causal claims. Canonical examples remain unset pending independent natural-strain provenance; do not infer origin from a mutant label. Native taxon-paired protein accessions and functional evidence are required before adding a causal graph.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Added nuclear-cargo autophagy with five DOI-backed snippets, source-attributed selectivity and flux limits. Corrected its autophagy parent's cytoplasmic-only wording (#1754). Ignored-and-hidden novelty checks found no exact record; reserved METPO:1059600 in v519. Deferred unverified exemplars, mappings and protein graphs.