auto-, aut-

1. The spontaneous casting off of a limb or other body part, such as the tail of certain lizards or the claw of a lobster, especially when the organism is injured or under attack.
2. The separation of a body part.
3. The self-amputation of a damaged or trapped appendage.
4. The performance of surgery upon oneself.

Someone who cuts his/her own hair or who looks as if he/she cuts his/her own hair.

1. The inability to recognize or correctly orient the parts of one's own body.
2. Loss of the power to recognize or orient a bodily part due to a brain lesion.
3. Inability to localize and name the parts of one's own body; for example, finger agnosia would be autotopagnosia restricted to the fingers.

1. The inability to recognize or correctly orient the parts of one's own body.
2. The inability to localize and name the parts of one's own body; finger agnosia would be autotopagnosia restricted to the fingers.
3. A disorder of the body image, because of a lesion of the parietal cortex in the nondominant hemisphere or organic brain damage, characterized by an inability to relate the parts of one's own body to extrapersonal space often with the consequent loss of topographical orientation.

Sometimes the affected individual is also unable to identify and interrelate to the parts of the body of another individual or even with a model.

Poisoning by harmful substances generated within the body itself.

A poison that acts on the organism in which it is generated.

Pruritus attributed to endogenous toxins, as in jaundice, uremia, etc.

The same thing as autointoxication or poisoning by harmful substances generated within the body itself.

Any harmful substance generated within the body; self poisonous.

1. Withdrawal and re-injection or transfusion of the patient's own blood.
2. Infusion of a patient's own blood, either collected and returned to the body during surgery or transfused from a stored supply.

1. An organism capable of synthesizing its own food from inorganic substances, using light or chemical energy. Green plants, algae, and certain bacteria are autotrophs.
2. Any organism capable of self-nourishment by using inorganic materials as a source of nutrients and using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis as a source of energy, as most plants and certain bacteria and protists.

An autotroph is an organism that produces organic compounds from carbon dioxide as a carbon source, using either light or reactions of inorganic chemical compounds as a source of energy.

Plants and other organisms using photosynthesis are photolithoautotrophs; bacteria that utilize the oxidation of inorganic compounds; such as, hydrogen sulfide or ferrous iron as an energy source so they are considered to be chemolithoautotrophs.

There are some organisms that require organic compounds as a source of carbon, but which are able to use light or inorganic compounds as sources of energy; and so, such organisms are not defined as autotrophic, but rather as heterotrophic.

An organism that obtains carbon from organic compounds but obtains energy from light is known as a photoheterotroph; while an organism which obtains carbon from organic compunds but obtains energy from the oxidation of inorganic compounds, is referred to as a chemoheterotroph.

Autotrophs are a vital part of the food chain because they take energy from the sun or from inorganic sources and convert them into a form (organic molecules) that they use to carry out biological functions including cell growth, and which other organisms (called heterotrophs) utilize as food.

So it is that heterotrophs; such as, animals, fungi, as well as most bacteria and protozoa, all depend on autotrophs for energy and for the raw materials to make complex organic molecules. Heterotrophs obtain energy by breaking down organic molecules obtained in their food.

Carnivorous animals ultimately rely on autotrophs because the energy and organic building blocks obtained from their prey comes from autotrophs which were eaten by the prey.

1. Capable of synthesizing complex organic substances from simple inorganic substrates; including both the chemoautotrophic and the photoautotrophic organisms.
2. A reference to any organism for which environmental carbon dioxide is the only or main source of carbon in the synthesis of organic compounds by photosynthesis.

A lake in which all or most of the organic matter present is derived from within the lake and not from drainage off the surrounding land.

1. Of or relating to organisms; such as, green plants that can make complex organic nutritive compounds from simple inorganic sources by photosynthesis.
2. Needing only carbon dioxide or carbonates as a source of carbon and a simple inorganic nitrogen compound for metabolic synthesis>
3. Not requiring a specified exogenous factor for normal metabolism.
4. Self-nourishing; the ability of an organism to produce food from inorganic compounds.

1. The state of being self-sustaining and being able to produce food from inorganic compounds.
2. Carbon autotrophy, ability to assimilate CO2 from the air.
3. Nitrogen autotrophy, ability to assimilate nitrate or to do nitrogen fixation.
4. Sulfur autotrophy, ability to assimilate sulfate.