qcrA Resolved · high

H37Rv Rv2195 · MTBC0 mtbc0_002331 · 429 aa · 2484399–2485688 (+) · RefSeq NP_216711.1

Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)ubiquinol-cytochrome C reductase rieske iron-sulfur subunit
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotationubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase iron-sulfur subunit
Revised (this work)QcrA, the Rieske iron-sulfur protein of the cytochrome bcc (bc1) complex of the respiratory chain. RefSeq leaves this locus uncharacterised, but Rv2195 is qcrA, part of the qcrCAB operon (with qcrB/Rv2196, the target of telacebec/Q203). Resistance to QcrB inhibitors can arise via QcrA mutations in the stigmatellin pocket (Lupien 2020), and qcrA is an essential, human-homolog-free drug target (Cloete 2016).

Curated reference (UniProt)

UniProt P9WH23 SwissProt · reviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameCytochrome bc1 complex Rieske iron-sulfur subunit
Curated functionIron-sulfur subunit of the cytochrome bc1 complex, an essential component of the respiratory electron transport chain required for ATP synthesis. The bc1 complex catalyzes the oxidation of menaquinol and the reduction of cytochrome c in the respiratory chain. The bc1 complex operates through a Q-cycle mechanism that couples electron transfer to generation of the proton gradient that drives ATP synthesis.

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category C Energy production and conversion
Preferred nameqcrA
eggNOG descriptionc reductase, iron-sulfur subunit
Orthologous groupCOG0723
KEGG orthology K03890
KEGG pathways map00190, map01100
KEGG modules M00151
Gene Ontology (16) GO:0005575, GO:0005618, GO:0005623, GO:0005886, GO:0005887, GO:0008150, GO:0016020, GO:0016021, GO:0030312, GO:0031224, GO:0031226, GO:0040007 +4 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 0.977 · relaxed/neutral
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 1 synonymous, 3 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.

Domains (Pfam, hmmscan --cut_ga)

No Pfam-A domain above the gathering threshold (or not yet scanned).

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

Closest characterised functional partner: qcrC (ubiquinol-cytochrome C reductase cytochrome subunit C), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 1000 excluding text-mining).

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv2194 qcrC ubiquinol-cytochrome C reductase cytochrome subunit C 999 1000 ctx neighborhood:881 cooccurence:773 coexpression:929 experimental:999 database:900 textmining:965
Rv2196 qcrB ubiquinol-cytochrome C reductase cytochrome subunit B 999 1000 ctx neighborhood:881 cooccurence:772 coexpression:983 experimental:999 database:984 textmining:909
Rv2199c ctaF cytochrome c oxidase polypeptide 4 999 1000 ctx cooccurence:769 experimental:999 textmining:514
Rv2193 ctaE cytochrome C oxidase subunit III 999 1000 ctx neighborhood:822 cooccurence:506 coexpression:928 experimental:999 textmining:935
Rv2200c ctaC cytochrome C oxidase subunit II 999 1000 ctx cooccurence:627 coexpression:445 experimental:999 textmining:889
Rv3043c ctaD cytochrome C oxidase cytochrome 1 999 1000 coexpression:663 experimental:999 textmining:809
Rv2876 transmembrane protein 999 999 experimental:999
Rv0432 sodC superoxide dismutase 997 997 experimental:997
Rv2782c pepR zinc protease 997 996 coexpression:710 experimental:928 database:844
Rv3153 nuoI NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit I 987 986 coexpression:812 experimental:922
Rv3149 nuoE NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit E 987 984 coexpression:803 experimental:922
Rv3148 nuoD NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit D 985 981 coexpression:808 experimental:904
Rv3147 nuoC NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit C 979 976 coexpression:746 experimental:908
Rv3151 nuoG NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit G 978 975 coexpression:683 experimental:923
Rv3150 nuoF NADH-quinone oxidoreductase subunit F 977 974 coexpression:671 experimental:925

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 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

  • Rieske Fe-S subunit of cytochrome bcc; qcrCAB operon (Lupien 2020, PMID 31971990)
  • QcrA mutations confer cross-resistance to QcrB inhibitors (stigmatellin pocket)
  • Essential respiratory drug target without human homolog
  • Curated from the literature crible (project 'Still unknown gene function', 2026-06-09)

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_216711.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — none above threshold
  • 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 COG0723
  • Curated reference: UniProt P9WH23 (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)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 203 functional partner(s); context anchor qcrC
  • Primary literature: Lupien A, Foo CS, Savina S, Vocat A, Piton J, Monakhova N, Benjak A, Lamprecht DA, Steyn AJC, Pethe K, Makarov VA, Cole ST (2020). New 2-Ethylthio-4-methylaminoquinazoline derivatives inhibiting two subunits of cytochrome bc1 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis PLoS Pathog 16(1):e1008270. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1008270 PMID:31971990

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>mtbc0_002331|Rv2195|qcrA
MSRADDDAVGVPPTCGGRSDEEERRIVPGPNPQDGAKDGAKATAVPREPDEAALAAMSNQELLALGGKLDGVRIAYKEPRWPVEGTKAEKRAERSVAVWLLLGGVFGLALLLIFLFWPWEFKAADGESDFIYSLTTPLYGLTFGLSILSIAIGAVLYQKRFIPEEISIQERHDGASREIDRKTVVANLTDAFEGSTIRRRKLIGLSFGVGMGAFGLGTLVAFAGGLIKNPWKPVVPTAEGKKAVLWTSGWTPRYQGETIYLARATGTEDGPPFIKMRPEDMDAGGMETVFPWRESDGDGTTVESHHKLQEIAMGIRNPVMLIRIKPSDLGRVVKRKGQESFNFGEFFAFTKVCSHLGCPSSLYEQQSYRILCPCHQSQFDALHFAKPIFGPAARALAQLPITIDTDGYLVANGDFVEPVGPAFWERTTT