identifier: traitmech:000141
label: alkaline phosphatase activity
definition: A physiological enzyme-activity phenotype in which a cell produces active
  alkaline phosphatase enzymes that dephosphorylate phosphate-containing compounds.
definition_source: DOI:10.1128/JB.185.16.4983-4991.2003
trait_category: PHYSIOLOGY
term_kind: CLASS
mapping_status: PROPOSED
parent_traits:
- METPO:1000059
evidence:
- reference: DOI:10.1128/JB.185.16.4983-4991.2003
  snippet: leads to constitutive expression of a protein with alkaline phosphatase
    activity
  notes: Kriakov et al. identified a Mycobacterium smegmatis phoA gene whose expression
    yields a protein with alkaline phosphatase activity.
- reference: DOI:10.1155/2021/8888641
  snippet: According to the API ZYM assays, all three isolates were positive for alkaline
    phosphatase, leucine aryl amidase, acid phosphatase, and naphthol_AS_BI_phosphohydrolase.
  notes: Mekonnen et al. treated alkaline phosphatase as an assayed bacterial exoenzyme
    phenotype in rapid urease-producing soil isolates.
canonical_examples:
- taxon_id: NCBITaxon:1772
  taxon_label: Mycobacterium smegmatis
  note: Mycobacterium smegmatis carries phoA and can express alkaline phosphatase
    activity when the phosphate-uptake system is perturbed.
  reference: DOI:10.1128/JB.185.16.4983-4991.2003
discussions:
- discussion_id: alkaline-phosphatase-activity-xref-gap
  prompt: Resolve an exact external ontology class for alkaline phosphatase activity
    before adding a TraitRecord xref.
  kind: CURATION_TODO
  status: OPEN
  rationale: GO:0004035 carries the same alkaline phosphatase activity label but denotes
    the enzyme molecular function rather than the organism-level phenotype, so it
    is appropriate as a causal-node grounding rather than an equivalent TraitRecord
    xref.
  posed_by: codex
  posed_date: '2026-09-11'
curation_history:
- timestamp: '2026-09-11T16:01:38Z'
  curator: codex
  action: MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID
  changes: Minted alkaline phosphatase activity as a DOI-backed TraitRecord after
    a repository-wide duplicate review covering ignored and hidden files; METPO has
    no exact alkaline phosphatase activity class yet.
  llm_assisted: true