Rv1439c Family assigned · medium auto-curated

H37Rv Rv1439c · MTBC0 mtbc0_001540 · 141 aa · 1626326–1626751 MTBC0 (-) · RefSeq NP_215955.1

Genomic neighbourhood (genome browser)

Open in full genome browser →

This gene (outlined) in its genomic context; arrows are neighbouring genes coloured by verdict. Click any gene to navigate. Pan and zoom in the full browser.

Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)hypothetical protein
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotationnuclear transport factor 2 family protein
Revised (this work)Nuclear transport factor 2 family protein. Pfam: SnoaL_2 (PF12680.14).
Functional category (TubercuList)conserved hypotheticals

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) never studied

No publication in PubMed mentions this gene in its title or abstract — not under its H37Rv locus tag, nor under any of its ortholog identifiers (M. bovis, M. marinum, M. smegmatis, M. leprae, M. abscessus). The atlas annotation rests on sequence/structure evidence, not on a primary study of this gene.

A verified absence of literature is itself information: it flags an annotation with no primary study behind it. This distinguishes a gene that is dark because nobody has looked from one that is dark despite having been studied. Source: PubMed (whole), MULTI-ALIAS sweep: H37Rv locus tag AND every ortholog identifier (M. bovis Mb…, M. marinum MMAR_…, M. smegmatis MSMEG_…, M. leprae ML…, M. abscessus MAB_…), each hit VERIFIED against the abstract text (word-boundary regex). phase73/phase75, 2026-07-13.

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index 1.44 (95% CI -0.13 to 3.82). 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).

Orthologues (reciprocal best hits across mycobacteria)

M. bovis Mb1474c · 100.0% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_001520 · 100.0% 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 O06820 TrEMBL · unreviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameSnoaL-like domain-containing protein

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category S Function unknown
eggNOG descriptionSnoaL-like domain
Orthologous groupCOG3631

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 0.846 · relaxed/neutral
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 2 synonymous, 5 missense, 0 nonsense, 1 frameshift
Disruption 1 distinct premature-stop/frameshift site(s); most common in 0.10% of strains (151) · 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) Mycobacterium

M. canettii dN/dS (deep-divergence selection) inf (low power) · 2 consensus substitution(s)
low power (2 canettii-consensus substitution(s)); present in M. canettii but dN/dS not reliable
Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 7/53 (13%) · mean identity 51.7% · 1/4 closest MTBAP relatives
present in a subset of the genus (7/53 NTM; in 1 of the 4 closest MTBAP relatives) — partial/intermediate conservation
Phylostratum (deepest detected homolog) MTBC-specific Mycobacterium Mycobacteriaceae Corynebacteriales Actinomycetia Bacteria

present across the genus Mycobacterium (NTM) but not detected in any non-Mycobacterium genome — a Mycobacterium-genus 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.

Essentiality (transposon mutagenesis)

DeJesus 2017 callNE · non-essential
What the call meansnon-essential
TA sites (Himar1) 7 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 7 non-essential, 0 growth-advantage. Saturation 1.000, mean read count 217.857142857. 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 7 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 7 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
fitness after prolonged in vitro passage (in vitro passage) -1.800.013 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 11 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance47.3 ppm · rank 1788/3519 (49.2th 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)

Length141 aa
Molecular weight16.0 kDa
Theoretical pI8.23
GRAVY-0.077 (hydrophilic)
Aliphatic index96.7
Aromaticity0.099
Instability index37.3 (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
SnoaL_2PF12680.14 2.1e-1310–109 SnoaL-like domain

Structural search (AlphaFold DB model, Foldseek vs PDB — genome-wide) pLDDT 88.8

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
3kkg-assembly1_A-2 1.00 0.76 8.1e-09 sig 3kkg-assembly1_A-2 Crystal structure of Putative SnoaL-like polyketide cyclase (YP_509242.1) from Jannaschia Sp. CCS1 at 1.40 A resolution
4hvn-assembly1_B 1.00 0.87 1.4e-07 sig 4hvn-assembly1_B Crystal structure of hypothetical protein with ketosteroid isomerase-like protein fold from Catenulispora acidiphila DSM 44928 in complex with Trimethylamine.
5yqt-assembly2_B 1.00 0.80 8.4e-08 sig 5yqt-assembly2_B Crystal Structure of the L74F/M78V/I80V/L114F mutant of LEH complexed with cyclopentene oxide
5cf1-assembly3_D 1.00 0.81 2.2e-07 sig 5cf1-assembly3_D Crystal Structure of the M32V/M78V/I80V/L114F mutant of LEH
4xdw-assembly2_F 1.00 0.79 2.0e-07 sig 4xdw-assembly2_F Crystal Structure of the L74F/M78V/I80V/L114F mutant of LEH

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 88.8, 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)

Upstream (5' on genome)tpi (+ strand, 611 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)secG (+ strand, 450 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).

Evidence

  • Legacy H37Rv annotation: hypothetical protein
  • MTBC0 PGAP product: nuclear transport factor 2 family protein
  • Pfam (hmmscan --cut_ga): SnoaL_2 PF12680.14 (E=2e-13)
  • (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_215955.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — SnoaL_2 (PF12680.14)
  • 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 COG3631
  • Curated reference: UniProt O06820 (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 88.8)
  • 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)
  • 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_001540|Rv1439c|
MQMSASNAFVEGFADFWKAPSPDRLTDHLHPDVVLVRPLSPPRHGLGAAQREFTRILGLLPDLHGEVDRWSQAGDVVFIEFRLIARLGSEVVEWPVVDRFLLRGDKAVERVSYFDSLPLLIKVVKHPSAWRGWLTTMRSRA