identifier: traitmech:000188
label: anaerobic ammonium oxidation
definition: An anaerobic nitrogen metabolism in which ammonium is oxidized with nitrite
  as the electron acceptor to form dinitrogen.
definition_source: DOI:10.1038/22749
trait_category: METABOLISM
term_kind: CLASS
mapping_status: PROPOSED
parent_traits:
- traitmech:000121
synonyms:
- synonym_text: anammox
  synonym_type: EXACT_SYNONYM
  source: DOI:10.1038/22749
- synonym_text: anaerobic ammonia oxidation
  synonym_type: RELATED_SYNONYM
  source: DOI:10.1038/22749
evidence:
- reference: DOI:10.1038/22749
  snippet: This new process combines ammonia and nitrite directly into dinitrogen
    gas
  notes: Strous et al. identified the anaerobic ammonia oxidation process and linked
    ammonia plus nitrite conversion to dinitrogen formation.
- reference: DOI:10.1128/AEM.65.7.3248-3250.1999
  snippet: The affinity constants for the substrates ammonium and nitrite were each
    less than 0.1 mg of nitrogen per liter.
  notes: Strous et al. measured ammonium and nitrite as high-affinity anammox substrates.
- reference: DOI:10.1038/nature10453
  snippet: anammox converts ammonia and nitrite into dinitrogen (N2) gas
  notes: Kartal et al. review the pathway scope and support anammox as the established
    exact synonym.
discussions:
- discussion_id: anaerobic-ammonium-oxidation-xref-gap
  prompt: Resolve an exact external ontology class for anaerobic ammonium oxidation
    before adding a TraitRecord xref.
  kind: CURATION_TODO
  status: OPEN
  rationale: The pinned METPO snapshot contains only METPO:1000812 obsolete Anaerobic
    ammonium oxidation. Candidate GO classes should be checked against the primary
    Gene Ontology release before adding an exact xref because component ammonium-
    or nitrite-oxidation processes are narrower than the whole anammox metabolism.
  posed_by: codex
  posed_date: '2026-09-14'
curation_history:
- timestamp: '2026-09-14T20:06:42Z'
  curator: codex
  action: MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID
  changes: Minted anaerobic ammonium oxidation as a DOI-backed nitrogen respiration
    TraitRecord after a repository-wide duplicate review covering ignored and hidden
    files; the local METPO snapshot has only obsolete anammox classes and the replacement
    placeholder is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v65.
  llm_assisted: true