identifier: traitmech:000200
label: tetrathionate respiration
definition: An anaerobic respiration in which an organism uses tetrathionate as the
  terminal electron acceptor and reduces it to thiosulfate for energy conservation.
definition_source: DOI:10.1046/j.1365-2958.1999.01345.x
trait_category: METABOLISM
term_kind: CLASS
mapping_status: PROPOSED
parent_traits:
- METPO:1000802
evidence:
- reference: DOI:10.1046/j.1365-2958.1999.01345.x
  snippet: A range of bacteria are able to use tetrathionate as a terminal respiratory
    electron acceptor
  notes: Hensel et al. support tetrathionate as an organism-level terminal electron
    acceptor for anaerobic respiration.
- reference: DOI:10.1046/j.1365-2958.1999.01345.x
  snippet: ttrA, ttrB and ttrC are the tetrathionate reductase structural genes
  notes: Hensel et al. identify the TtrA/TtrB/TtrC structural genes for Salmonella
    tetrathionate reductase.
- reference: DOI:10.1128/JB.183.8.2463-2475.2001
  snippet: Salmonella reduces tetrathionate to thiosulfate
  notes: Price-Carter et al. support thiosulfate as the reduction product of Salmonella
    tetrathionate respiration.
- reference: DOI:10.1128/JB.183.8.2463-2475.2001
  snippet: the electron acceptor tetrathionate, which allows Salmonella to grow anaerobically
    on ethanolamine or 1,2-propanediol
  notes: Price-Carter et al. support tetrathionate-dependent anaerobic growth in Salmonella
    enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2.
canonical_examples:
- taxon_id: NCBITaxon:99287
  taxon_label: Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium str. LT2
  note: Price-Carter et al. showed that the electron acceptor tetrathionate supports
    anaerobic growth of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2 on ethanolamine
    or 1,2-propanediol.
  reference: DOI:10.1128/JB.183.8.2463-2475.2001
discussions:
- discussion_id: tetrathionate-respiration-xref-gap
  prompt: Resolve an exact external ontology class for organism-level tetrathionate
    respiration before adding a TraitRecord xref.
  kind: CURATION_TODO
  status: OPEN
  rationale: The pinned METPO snapshot has no active organism-level class for tetrathionate
    respiration. Candidate EC, Rhea, and protein-family terms for tetrathionate reductase
    or the TtrA/TtrB/TtrC complex are narrower than the whole-organism anaerobic respiration
    phenotype.
  posed_by: codex
  posed_date: '2026-09-15'
curation_history:
- timestamp: '2026-09-15T02:26:41Z'
  curator: codex
  action: MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID
  changes: Minted tetrathionate respiration as a DOI-backed anaerobic respiration
    TraitRecord after a repository-wide duplicate review covering ignored and hidden
    files; the local METPO snapshot has no exact class and the replacement placeholder
    is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v77.
  llm_assisted: true