cysO Resolved · high auto-curated

H37Rv Rv1335 · MTBC0 mtbc0_001432 · 93 aa · 1513805–1514086 MTBC0 (+) · RefSeq NP_215851.1

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Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)sulfur carrier protein CysO
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotationsulfur carrier protein CysO
Revised (this work)Sulfur carrier protein CysO. Pfam: ThiS (PF02597.27).
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.

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) 9 publications

9 TB publications mention this gene. 9 publication(s) discuss this gene (8 in a M. tuberculosis context).

Most recent 5 of 9.
PublicationDate
Mycobacterium tuberculosis cysteine biosynthesis genes mec+-cysO-cysM confer resistance to clofazimine. doi:10.1016/j.tube.2019.02.002 2019
CysK2 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an O-phospho-L-serine-dependent S-sulfocysteine synthase. doi:10.1128/JB.01851-14 2014
Polyclonal activation of naïve T cells by urease deficient-recombinant BCG that produced protein complex composed of heat shock protein 70, CysO and major membrane protein-II. doi:10.1186/1471-2334-14-179 2014
Elucidation of the dual role of Mycobacterial MoeZR in molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis and cysteine biosynthesis. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028170 2011
The C-terminal of CysM from Mycobacterium tuberculosis protects the aminoacrylate intermediate and is involved in sulfur donor selectivity. doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2008.12.019 2009

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.

Intrinsic disorder (sequence + structure) partially disordered

Predicted disorder16% of residues (metapredict) · mean AlphaFold pLDDT 95.2
Disordered regions1 IDR(s), longest 16 aa [0-16]

carries a substantial disordered region (16/93 residues); disorder is a property, not a function

A property (biophysics), not a function. No LLPS/condensate claim is made from disorder alone. Verdict unchanged. Source: metapredict v3 (Emenecker/Holehouse) per-residue disorder + AlphaFold mean pLDDT (annotation_mtbc P16.13).

Post-translational modifications

2 reported modified residue(s): 1-thioglycine; alternate @93, CysO-cysteine adduct; alternate @93.

Experimentally reported post-translational modification(s). A phosphosite indicates the protein is expressed and is a substrate of the M. tuberculosis Ser/Thr/Tyr kinase signalling network — a regulatory context, NOT a molecular function. Source: UniProt (Modified residue features; PTM sites curated from the M. tuberculosis literature).

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index 1.38 (95% CI -0.48 to 4.45). 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 functionProbably involved in cysteine biosynthesis, as sulfur donor in thiocarboxylated form.

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 Mb1370 · 100.0% identity
M. marinum MMAR_4063 · 86.0% identity
M. smegmatis MSMEG_4906 · 82.8% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_001409 · 100.0% identity
M. abscessus MAB_1479 · 79.6% 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 P9WP33 SwissProt · reviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameSulfur carrier protein CysO
Curated functionIn its thiocarboxylated form (CysO-COSH), is the sulfur donor in the CysM-dependent cysteine biosynthetic pathway. May be of particular importance for cysteine biosynthesis in the persistent phase of M.tuberculosis.

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category H Coenzyme transport and metabolism
Preferred namecysO
eggNOG descriptionMolybdopterin converting factor, small subunit
Orthologous groupCOG1977
KEGG orthology K03636
KEGG pathways map04122
Gene Ontology (40) GO:0000096, GO:0000097, GO:0005575, GO:0005622, GO:0005623, GO:0005737, GO:0005829, GO:0006082, GO:0006520, GO:0006534, GO:0006790, GO:0006807 +28 more

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 n/a
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 0 synonymous, 2 missense, 0 nonsense, 0 frameshift

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) Actinomycetia

Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 31/53 (58%) · mean identity 85.9% · 4/4 closest MTBAP relatives
conserved across the genus (present in 31/53 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 6/13 non-Mycobacterium reference genomes (down to Actinomycetia) · mean identity 70.1%
detected across the class Actinomycetia (beyond Corynebacteriales) but not outside the phylum — an Actinobacteria-level ancient gene

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.

Regions of Difference (lineage deletions)

RDGene overlapDeleted in lineages
RD711 100% L5 (78%)

This locus overlaps a Region of Difference — a large deletion that is absent in the listed lineages (from the consolidated MTBC RD analysis over ~145 000 strains; H37Rv coordinates). The gene-overlap column is the fraction of the gene inside the RD. RD deletions are classic lineage markers (e.g. RD9 absent in the animal / M. africanum lineages); a gene deleted in a whole lineage is dispensable there.

Essentiality (transposon mutagenesis)

DeJesus 2017 callGA · growth-advantage
What the call meansgrowth-advantage: insertions enriched
TA sites (Himar1) 5 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 0 non-essential, 5 growth-advantage. Saturation 1.000, mean read count 449. A region of the protein devoid of TA sites is invisible to this assay: nothing can be inferred about it, in either direction.
CaveatRead with some caution: only 5 TA (Himar1) sites in the whole ORF (atlas median 13). The DeJesus 2017 call rests on fewer independent observations than for a longer gene. If this gene overlaps a neighbour (see Genomic-neighbour overlap section below), some of these 5 sites may fall inside the neighbour's ORF rather than its own, leaving even fewer truly informative sites than the raw count suggests. (P20.3)

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 6 weeks hypoxia (stress) +1.340.013 disruption advantageous

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 12 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance223.0 ppm · rank 792/3519 (77.5th 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.

Physico-chemical properties (computed, ProtParam)

Length93 aa
Molecular weight9.6 kDa
Theoretical pI4.78
GRAVY0.075 (hydrophobic)
Aliphatic index95.4
Aromaticity0.043
Instability index36.1 (stable)

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
ThiSPF02597.27 5.2e-175–93 ThiS family

Experimental structures (Protein Data Bank) 2 solved

PDBMethodResolutionCoverage
3dwg X-ray diffraction 1.53 Å 100%
3dwm X-ray diffraction 2.69 Å 100%

Experimentally solved structures mapped from the UniProt accession via PDBe/SIFTS (2 total; up to 8 shown, ranked by sequence coverage then resolution). An experimental structure is direct proof of the folded product and the strongest structural evidence — superseding the predicted ESMFold/AlphaFold models below for any covered region.

Structural search (AlphaFold DB model, Foldseek vs PDB — genome-wide) pLDDT 95.2

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
3dwm-assembly2_B 1.00 0.99 7.4e-16 sig 3dwm-assembly2_B Crystal structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis CysO, an antigen
4n6e-assembly1_B-2 1.00 0.93 6.1e-13 sig 4n6e-assembly1_B-2 Crystal structure of Amycolatopsis orientalis BexX/CysO complex
1v8c-assembly1_A 1.00 0.84 2.8e-06 sig 1v8c-assembly1_A Crystal Structure of MoaD related protein from Thermus thermophilus HB8
2l52-assembly1_A 1.00 0.82 1.9e-06 sig 2l52-assembly1_A Solution structure of the small archaeal modifier protein 1 (SAMP1) from Methanosarcina acetivorans
3po0-assembly1_A 1.00 0.81 1.8e-06 sig 3po0-assembly1_A Crystal structure of SAMP1 from Haloferax volcanii

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 95.2, gated at 70) against the PDB — a genome-wide extension of the ESMFold dark-gene search that also covers proteins beyond the single-sequence length limit. Confident structural neighbours (E < 0.01) shown.

Genomic context (neighbours & predicted operon) operon of 11

Upstream (5' on genome)mec (+ strand, 21 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)cysM (+ strand, 9 bp gap)
Predicted operon Rv1331 · Rv1332 · Rv1333 · mec · cysO · cysM · Rv1337 · murI · Rv1339 · rphA · Rv1341

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 (5 TF) trcR (represses) · Rv1816 (activates) · Rv2011c (represses) · Rv2034 (activates) · Rv3249c (represses)

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: cysM (O-phosphoserine sulfhydrylase), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 1000 excluding text-mining).

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv1336 cysM exp O-phosphoserine sulfhydrylase 999 1000 ctx neighborhood:876 coexpression:808 experimental:999 textmining:901
Rv1334 mec [CysO 991 991 ctx neighborhood:851 cooccurence:715 coexpression:797
Rv3206c moeB1 exp adenylyltransferase/sulfurtransferase MoeZ 997 978 ctx cooccurence:598 experimental:415 database:900 textmining:885
Rv0417 thiG exp thiazole synthase 976 974 experimental:973
Rv3116 moeB2 exp molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis protein MoeB 991 973 ctx cooccurence:531 experimental:415 database:900 textmining:697
Rv3119 moaE1 exp molybdopterin synthase catalytic subunit 1 981 972 coexpression:500 experimental:463 database:900
Rv3323c moaX exp MoaD-MoaE fusion protein MoaX 979 971 coexpression:491 experimental:463 database:900
Rv0866 moaE2 exp molybdopterin synthase catalytic subunit 2 978 971 coexpression:494 experimental:463 database:900
Rv3112 moaD1 exp molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis protein MoaD 944 921 database:900
Rv0868c moaD2 exp cyclic pyranopterin monophosphate synthase 949 901 database:900 textmining:511
Rv1337 integral membrane protein 896 897 ctx neighborhood:876
Rv1338 murI glutamate racemase 882 882 ctx neighborhood:876
Rv1333 hydrolase 856 856 ctx neighborhood:851
Rv2334 cysK1 exp O-acetylserine sulfhydrylase 946 842 experimental:828 textmining:675
Rv1077 cbs exp cystathionine beta-synthase 849 841 experimental:828

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

  • Legacy H37Rv annotation: sulfur carrier protein CysO
  • MTBC0 PGAP product: sulfur carrier protein CysO
  • Pfam (hmmscan --cut_ga): ThiS PF02597.27 (E=5e-17)
  • (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_215851.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — ThiS (PF02597.27)
  • 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 COG1977
  • Curated reference: UniProt P9WP33 (SwissProt, reviewed; 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 95.2)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 44 functional partner(s); context anchor cysM
  • 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
  • Experimental structures: PDBe/SIFTS UniProt→PDB mapping (Dana et al. 2019, doi:10.1093/nar/gky1114)
  • Regions of Difference: consolidated MTBC RD analysis (H37Rv coordinates); RD framework from Brosch et al. 2002 (doi:10.1073/pnas.052548299) and Gagneux & Small 2007 (doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(07)70108-1)
  • 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
  • Primary literature: none located yet; annotation rests on the domain/homology sources above.

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>mtbc0_001432|Rv1335|cysO
MNVTVSIPTILRPHTGGQKSVSASGDTLGAVISDLEANYSGISERLMDPSSPGKLHRFVNIYVNDEDVRFSGGLATAIADGDSVTILPAVAGG