Rv0517 Resolved · high auto-curated

H37Rv Rv0517 · MTBC0 - · 436 aa · 608746–610056 H37Rv (+) · RefSeq NP_215031.1

Genomic neighbourhood (genome browser)

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Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)acyltransferase
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotation
Revised (this work)Acyltransferase. Pfam: Acyl_transf_3 (PF01757.29).
Functional category (TubercuList)intermediary metabolism and respiration

Auto-curated: this verdict and function were generated by rules from PGAP + Pfam + Foldseek and have not been hand-reviewed.

Annotated on the H37Rv protein: this gene has no 1:1 ancestral MTBC0 anchor (PE/PPE, paralogue, IS element, or otherwise unanchored CDS).

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) never studied

No publication mentions this gene in its title or abstract — not under its H37Rv locus tag, not under its gene name, and not under any ortholog identifier. Its annotation rests on sequence/structure evidence, with no primary study behind it.

This layer CITES the literature and adds context; it does not change the verdict or the function stated elsewhere in this fiche. This distinguishes a gene that is dark because nobody has looked from one that is dark despite having been studied. Source: PubMed (whole): H37Rv locus tag + GENE NAME + ortholog identifiers (Mb…, MMAR_…, MSMEG_…, ML…, MAB_…), under a mycobacterial context filter; hits verified against the abstract text. Species-context counts distinguish M. tuberculosis literature from literature on other mycobacteria. phase76/phase77, 2026-07-13.

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index -0.20 (95% CI -2.86 to 3.28). A more negative index = more vulnerable to knockdown (better drug-target quality); indicative threshold VI ≤ -6 = highly vulnerable.

Quantitative CRISPRi knockdown, graded (finer than binary Tn-seq essentiality). Source: CRISPRi vulnerability index (Bosch 2021, pebble.rockefeller.edu).

Legacy record & comparison (Mycobrowser)

Mycobrowser functionFunction unknown; probably involved in cellular metabolism.
Mycobrowser EC 2.3.1.-

The legacy Mycobrowser record is shown for verification. Mycobrowser is no longer maintained; its EC numbers predate recent nomenclature revisions, so a class change usually reflects re-numbering, not a conflict.

Orthologues (reciprocal best hits across mycobacteria)

M. bovis Mb0530 · 99.8% identity
M. marinum MMAR_0854 · 79.9% identity
M. smegmatis MSMEG_3490 · 70.0% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_000544 · 99.8% identity
M. abscessus MAB_0401 · 71.7% identity

Reciprocal-best-hit orthologues (DIAMOND) against the Mycobrowser reference proteomes. A missing species is informative: e.g. a gene absent from M. leprae was likely lost in its reductive genome evolution. Locus tags link to Mycobrowser.

Curated reference (UniProt)

UniProt O33362 TrEMBL · unreviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt namePossible membrane acyltransferase

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category I Lipid transport and metabolism
eggNOG descriptionAcyltransferase
Orthologous groupCOG1835

Orthology-based transfer (eggNOG 5.0.2, diamond). EC/KO/GO/CAZy are computed annotations, not manual curation; cross-check against the primary literature before treating a specific reaction as established.

Conservation & selection (intra-MTBC, 145 209 strains)

pN/pS 0.574 · relaxed/neutral
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 3 synonymous, 4 missense, 1 nonsense, 1 frameshift
Disruption 2 distinct premature-stop/frameshift site(s); most common in 0.16% of strains (237) · clonal

pN/pS from segregating SNPs (singletons removed) normalised by possible sites. Low pN/pS = purifying selection (a strong signal that a "hypothetical" is a real, constrained gene). A high pN/pS is ambiguous: relaxed constraint or positive selection (drug resistance, antigenic variation) inflate it; e.g. rpoB/katG/pncA score high here for resistance, not loss of function. A clonal disruption (one allele over a clade) suggests lineage pseudogenisation; a convergent one (many independent alleles) is typical of resistance loss-of-function.

Outgroup conservation (beyond the MTBC) Mycobacteriaceae

Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 50/53 (94%) · mean identity 78.0% · 4/4 closest MTBAP relatives
conserved across the genus (present in 50/53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium genomes, incl. distant relatives) — an ancient core gene predating the genus radiation
Phylostratum (deepest detected homolog) MTBC-specific Mycobacterium Mycobacteriaceae Corynebacteriales Actinomycetia Bacteria
detected in 1/13 non-Mycobacterium reference genomes (down to Mycobacteriaceae) · mean identity 66.5%
detected in the sister family Mycobacteriaceae (M. abscessus) but not in the broader Corynebacteriales — a Mycobacteriaceae-restricted gene (single-genome rung: interpret with care)

Two orthogonal outgroup signals. M. canettii (the immediate outgroup) gives a deep-divergence dN/dS (a low value confirms a constrained, real gene; shown as confident only at ≥8 substitutions, else flagged low-power). Genus-wide presence/absence (tblastn vs assembled non-MTBC genomes) places the gene on the ancient-core ↔ MTBC-specific axis: a gene absent even from the closest MTBAP relatives is a candidate MTBC-specific innovation (possible host-adaptation factor, to confirm by synteny). The phylostratum extends that axis outside the genus (tblastn vs 13 reference genomes spanning Mycobacteriaceae → Corynebacteriales → Actinomycetia → outside the phylum): it is the deepest clade in which a homolog is still detected, i.e. a proxy for gene age. Read it with the null model in mind: a shallow (young) stratum can also reflect homology-detection failure for short or fast-evolving ORFs, so it is a descriptive axis, not a proof of novelty.

Essentiality (transposon mutagenesis)

DeJesus 2017 callGA · growth-advantage
What the call meansgrowth-advantage: insertions enriched
TA sites (Himar1) 21 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 0 non-essential, 21 growth-advantage. Saturation 1.000, mean read count 283.80952381. A region of the protein devoid of TA sites is invisible to this assay: nothing can be inferred about it, in either direction.

Genome-wide Himar1 transposon essentiality in H37Rv (DeJesus 2017). An essential call (ES/ESD/GD) is strong, independent evidence that a "hypothetical" locus encodes a functional, selectively required gene — orthogonal to intra-species conservation.

Mutant phenotypes (conditional Tn-seq, MtbTnDB)

Conditionlog2FCqEffect
altered fitness under Ethambutol (drug exposure) -1.550.02 required

Conditional fitness of transposon-disruption mutants across 1 significant condition(s) (|log2FC|≥1, q≤0.05), from the standardized MtbTnDB compendium. A negative log2FC means the mutant is depleted — the gene contributes to fitness in that condition. An in-vivo defect for a "hypothetical" is strong evidence it matters for infection, even without a known molecular function. Disruption (Tn insertion), not a clean deletion; genetic-interaction screens excluded.

Proteomics (mass spectrometry) detected

MS detectiondetected in 7 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance0.94 ppm · rank 3284/3519 (6.7th percentile)

Detection by mass spectrometry is direct, experimental evidence that the protein product exists — orthogonal to sequence conservation and to Tn-seq essentiality, and especially decisive for a "hypothetical" locus. Reproducible detection across several independent datasets (PaxDb) makes the existence claim robust; the integrated abundance places the protein in the proteome's dynamic range.

Predicted localisation (DeepTMHMM + lipobox)

Predictionpredicted membrane protein (10 TM helixes)
DeepTMHMM classTM
TM helices (DeepTMHMM)10

Transmembrane topology and signal peptide from DeepTMHMM (deep-learning reference predictor); lipoproteins from a (myco)bacterial lipobox motif. A sequence-based prediction of subcellular context.

Physico-chemical properties (computed, ProtParam)

Length436 aa
Molecular weight48.2 kDa
Theoretical pI9.7
GRAVY0.455 (hydrophobic)
Aliphatic index113.9
Aromaticity0.112
Instability index43.0 (unstable)

Computed from the ancestral MTBC0 sequence with the ExPASy ProtParam method (Biopython). Descriptive biophysical context: a positive GRAVY flags a hydrophobic (often membrane) protein, a high instability index (>40) predicts a short in-vitro half-life, an extreme pI hints at compartment or binding partner.

Domains (Pfam, hmmscan --cut_ga)

PfamAccessioni-EvalueResiduesDescription
Acyl_transf_3PF01757.29 5.4e-2637–387 Acyltransferase domain

Genomic context (neighbours & predicted operon)

Upstream (5' on genome)Rv0516c (- strand, 210 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)Rv0518 (+ strand, 131 bp gap)

Neighbours from the H37Rv annotation (+ strand). The operon is predicted by co-directional intergenic distance (same strand, gaps ≤50 bp) — a transcription-unit hypothesis, not a mapped TSS. For a "hypothetical", co-transcription with a characterised operon is a concrete functional lead (complements the STRING neighborhood channel below).

Transcriptional regulation (signed TRN: ChIP-seq + TFOE)

Regulated by (2 TF) Rv0576 (represses) · mmpR5 (activates)

Regulatory edges from the ISB signed transcriptional regulatory network (TF ChIP-seq binding, Minch 2015 + TF-overexpression response, Rustad 2014). An edge is regulatory evidence (binding and/or expression change), not necessarily direct. For a "hypothetical", membership in a known regulon (e.g. DosR dormancy, PhoP virulence) is a strong physiological-context lead.

Functional interaction network (STRING v12, guilt-by-association)

Explore full network →

Node colour = verdict, dashed = hypothetical; edge colour = evidence (green experimental, orange genomic-context, grey co-expression), width ∝ score. Click a partner to open its page; "Explore full network" to walk the graph.

Closest characterised functional partner: Rv3779 (transmembrane protein), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 738 excluding text-mining).

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv0518 hyp hypothetical protein 912 909 ctx neighborhood:757 cooccurence:640
Rv3779 transmembrane protein 737 738 ctx cooccurence:734
Rv0048c membrane protein 737 738 ctx cooccurence:734
Rv3700c egtE pyridoxal-phosphate-dependent protein EgtE 572 572 ctx cooccurence:567
Rv0779c transmembrane protein 559 559 ctx cooccurence:557
Rv3707c hyp hypothetical protein 536 537 ctx cooccurence:534
Rv0875c hyp hypothetical protein 530 530 ctx cooccurence:530
Rv2828c hyp hypothetical protein 526 526 ctx cooccurence:526
Rv0516c oprA anti-anti-sigma factor 526 526 ctx neighborhood:494
Rv2825c hyp hypothetical protein 513 513 ctx cooccurence:513
Rv3906c hyp hypothetical protein 508 508 ctx cooccurence:507
Rv2905 lppW lipoprotein LppW 501 501 ctx cooccurence:501
Rv3435c transmembrane protein 501 501 ctx cooccurence:498
Rv3773c hyp hypothetical protein 497 498 ctx cooccurence:496
Rv3202c adnA ATP-dependent DNA helicase 492 492 ctx cooccurence:476

STRING combines evidence channels (neighborhood, fusion, cooccurrence, coexpression, experimental, database, text-mining) into a 0–1000 score. The ctx badge marks edges carried by the genomic-context channels (conserved neighborhood, fusion, phylogenetic co-occurrence), which are independent of orthology and structure and the strongest signal for an unknown gene. The exp badge marks an experimentally-supported partner (measured interaction, experimental/database channel ≥400) as opposed to a purely predicted one — but note that the M. tuberculosis experimental interactome is dominated by a noisy bacterial-two-hybrid screen, so a strong measured link that contradicts the operon/localisation context is likely a false positive. The no text-mining column recomputes the score from data alone, so a link that does not depend on the literature is visible. Association is a function hypothesis, not proof: corroborate with the operon context and the primary literature before assigning a function.

Evidence

  • Annotation from H37Rv (no MTBC0 1:1 anchor; H37Rv protein used): acyltransferase
  • Pfam (hmmscan --cut_ga): Acyl_transf_3 PF01757.29 (E=5e-26)
  • (auto-curated by rules from PGAP + Pfam + Foldseek; not hand-reviewed)

Sources

  • Ancestral sequence & coordinates: Harrison LB et al. (2024), An imputed ancestral reference genome for the MTBC, doi:10.1101/2023.09.07.556366
  • Product annotation: NCBI PGAP on MTBC0; legacy from H37Rv NC_000962.3 (RefSeq NP_215031.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — Acyl_transf_3 (PF01757.29)
  • Sequence-level signal: ESM Atlas (EvolutionaryScale × BioHub) — exploratory
  • Controlled vocabulary: eggNOG-mapper 2.1.12 (Cantalapiedra et al. 2021, doi:10.1093/molbev/msab293), eggNOG 5.0 DB (Huerta-Cepas et al. 2019) — OG COG1835
  • Curated reference: UniProt O33362 (TrEMBL, unreviewed; Evidence at protein level)
  • Intra-MTBC selection: pN/pS and disruption from SPDI variants of 145 209 MTBC strains (this work, local collection vs H37Rv NC_000962.3)
  • Genome-wide structure: AlphaFold DB model (Jumper et al. 2021, doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2; Varadi et al. 2024, doi:10.1093/nar/gkad1011) searched vs PDB with Foldseek (mean pLDDT 84.5)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 39 functional partner(s); context anchor Rv3779
  • Essentiality: genome-wide transposon mutagenesis in H37Rv — DeJesus et al. 2017 (mBio, doi:10.1128/mBio.02133-16, CC BY)
  • Proteomics: integrated mass-spectrometry abundance from PaxDb 5.0 (Huang et al. 2023, doi:10.1016/j.mcpro.2023.100640), taxon 83332 — weighted average of 16 datasets, incl. Schubert et al. 2013 (doi:10.1016/j.chom.2013.04.008) and Albrethsen et al. 2013 (doi:10.1074/mcp.M112.018846)
  • Functional category: TubercuList scheme (Cole et al. 1998, doi:10.1038/31159), via Mycobrowser (Kapopoulou et al. 2011, doi:10.1016/j.tube.2010.09.006)
  • Orthologues: reciprocal best hits (DIAMOND, Buchfink et al. 2021, doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01101-x) against Mycobrowser release 5 reference proteomes
  • Genomic context / operon: H37Rv annotation; operon predicted by co-directional intergenic distance (Salgado et al. 2000, doi:10.1073/pnas.030539397)
  • Transcriptional regulation: ISB signed TRN — TF ChIP-seq (Minch et al. 2015, doi:10.1038/ncomms6829) + TF overexpression (Rustad et al. 2014, doi:10.1186/gb-2014-15-11-502)
  • Mutant phenotypes: standardized Tn-seq compendium MtbTnDB (Jinich et al. 2025, doi:10.1111/mmi.15370), aggregating many primary Tn-seq studies across conditions
  • Physico-chemical properties: ExPASy ProtParam method via Biopython (Gasteiger et al. 2005), computed from the MTBC0 sequence
  • Predicted localisation: DeepTMHMM (Hallgren et al. 2022, doi:10.1101/2022.04.08.487609) for transmembrane topology and signal peptide
  • Primary literature: none located yet; annotation rests on the domain/homology sources above.

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>H37Rv|Rv0517|
MAGGMDQPPGQPRRRTRQQSSDGKNGVRAAEITGEIRALTGLRIVAAVWVVLFHFRPMLGDASPGFRDALAPVLDCGAQGVDLFFILSGFVLTWNYLDRMGRSWSVRANLHFLWLRLARVWPVYLVTLHLAAVWVIFTLHVGHVPSPEAGQLTAISYVRQILLVQLWFQPYFDGSSWDGPAWSISAEWLAYLLFGLLILVIFRMKHATRARGLMWLAFAASLPPVVLLLASGQFYTPWSWLPRIVTQFAAGALACAAVRRLRPTDRARRIAGYLSVLVGVAIVGILYLLHAHPLAGVEDSGGVVDVLFVPLVISLAIGVGSLPALLSTRLMVFGGQISFCLYMVHELVHTAWGWAVQQYELALQDQPWKWNVVGLLAIALGAAILLYHFVEEPGRRWMRRMVDVKAASARSEPGEPVGSTRYQIDDALEGVSARAV