identifier: traitmech:000190
label: lipolysis
definition: A metabolism in which a microorganism hydrolyzes triacylglycerols into
  fatty acids and glycerol through lipase-catalyzed ester cleavage.
definition_source: DOI:10.1186/s12934-020-01428-8
trait_category: METABOLISM
term_kind: CLASS
mapping_status: PROPOSED
parent_traits:
- METPO:1000060
evidence:
- reference: DOI:10.1186/s12934-020-01428-8
  snippet: Microbial lipases (EC 3.1.1.3) catalyze the hydrolysis of long chain triglycerides
  notes: Chandra et al. review microbial lipases and their use in long-chain triglyceride
    hydrolysis.
- reference: DOI:10.1007/s00253-004-1568-8
  snippet: Lipases, triacylglycerol hydrolases, are an important group of biotechnologically
    relevant enzymes
  notes: Gupta et al. review bacterial lipases as microbial enzymes for triacylglycerol
    hydrolysis.
discussions:
- discussion_id: lipolysis-xref-gap
  prompt: Resolve an exact external ontology xref for organism-level microbial lipolysis
    before adding a TraitRecord xref.
  kind: CURATION_TODO
  status: OPEN
  rationale: The pinned METPO snapshot contains only obsolete METPO:1000175 lipolysis,
    and GO:0016298 denotes the lipase molecular function rather than the organism-level
    lipid-hydrolysis trait. GO lipid catabolic process classes also include downstream
    fatty-acid catabolism and are broader than lipase-driven triacylglycerol hydrolysis.
  posed_by: codex
  posed_date: '2026-09-14'
curation_history:
- timestamp: '2026-09-14T21:00:00Z'
  curator: codex
  action: MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID
  changes: Minted lipolysis as a DOI-backed metabolism TraitRecord after a repository-wide
    duplicate review covering ignored and hidden files; METPO has only an obsolete
    lipolysis class.
  llm_assisted: true