tyzA Resolved · high

H37Rv Rv2336 · MTBC0 mtbc0_002486 · 322 aa · 2635587–2636555 MTBC0 (+) · RefSeq NP_216852.1

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Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)hypothetical protein
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotationhypothetical protein
Revised (this work)Amino-acid N-acyltransferase TyzA of the tyz cluster; N-acylates L-Tyr/L-Phe with lauroyl-CoA in acyl-oxazolone (tyrazolone) biosynthesis (Grigg 2023).
Functional category (TubercuList)conserved hypotheticals

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) 3 publications

Found under: H37Rv (3).

3 TB publications mention this gene. 3 publication(s) mention this gene (title/abstract), verified against the text. The atlas states the function; these are the primary sources that discuss it.

PublicationDate
Deciphering the biosynthesis of a novel lipid in Mycobacterium tuberculosis expands the known roles of the nitroreductase superfamily. doi:10.1016/j.jbc.2023.104924 2023
Genes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv downregulated in the attenuated strain H37Ra are restricted to M. tuberculosis complex species. 2001
Search for genes potentially involved in Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence by mRNA differential display. doi:10.1006/bbrc.1999.0591 1999

This layer CITES the literature, it does not change the verdict or the function. A gene may be heavily studied (as an antigen, a resistance determinant, a drug target) while its molecular function is settled elsewhere in the fiche. 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.

Conditional expression context (iModulons)

Member of 1 independently-modulated gene set(s): Lsr2 (lsr2).

iModulon membership (independently-modulated gene sets from a 647-sample RNA-seq compendium): the conditional co-expression context. Co-expression is a regulatory context, NOT a molecular function. Source: iModulonDB / modulome_mtb (Yoo 2022).

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index 1.58 (95% CI -0.07 to 4.48). 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) ahead of Mycobrowser

Mycobrowser functionUnknown. May be involved in virulence.

Mycobrowser classes this locus among conserved hypotheticals; the atlas now assigns a functional handle (requalified function). Mycobrowser is no longer maintained, so its EC numbers predate recent nomenclature revisions (e.g. the 2018 EC 7 "translocase" class) — most EC differences are re-numberings of the same enzyme, not conflicts.

Orthologues (reciprocal best hits across mycobacteria)

M. bovis Mb2364 · 100.0% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_002417 · 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 P95232 TrEMBL · unreviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameUncharacterized protein

UniProt still lists this protein as Uncharacterized protein; the revised annotation above is ahead of the current UniProt record.

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

pN/pS 0.323 · purifying
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 4 synonymous, 4 missense, 0 nonsense, 1 frameshift
Disruption 1 distinct premature-stop/frameshift site(s); most common in 0.12% of strains (170) · 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) MTBC-specific

Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 0/53 (0%) · 0/4 closest MTBAP relatives
SENSITIVITY DOWNGRADE: a divergent homolog is detectable at relaxed thresholds (weak hit 25%/81%cov in M_ulcerans — likely present but divergent); NOT a robust MTBC-specific innovation — present but divergent. The strict tblastn absence was a coverage/identity-threshold artefact.
Phylostratum (deepest detected homolog) MTBC-specific Mycobacterium Mycobacteriaceae Corynebacteriales Actinomycetia Bacteria

absent from the whole genus and from all outgroups tested — a candidate MTBC-specific innovation (confirm by synteny; rule out detection failure for short/divergent ORFs)

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) 29 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 29 non-essential, 0 growth-advantage. Saturation 0.897, mean read count 41.2307692308. 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.

Proteomics (mass spectrometry) detected

MS detectiondetected in 9 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance5.68 ppm · rank 2894/3519 (17.8th 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)

Length322 aa
Molecular weight35.3 kDa
Theoretical pI5.61
GRAVY-0.294 (hydrophilic)
Aliphatic index82.4
Aromaticity0.068
Instability index48.3 (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)

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

Structural search (AlphaFold DB model, Foldseek vs PDB — genome-wide) pLDDT 79.5

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
2zpa-assembly1_A 0.98 0.43 1.4e-03 sig 2zpa-assembly1_A Crystal Structure of tRNA(Met) Cytidine Acetyltransferase

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 79.5, 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)cysE (+ strand, 415 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)Rv2337c (- strand, 63 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 (6 TF) Rv0324 (represses) · Rv0576 (represses) · mmpR5 (represses) · Rv2989 (activates) · devR (represses) · Rv3736 (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.

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv2819c csm5 CRISPR type III-associated RAMP protein Csm5 866 58 textmining:864
Rv1754c hyp hypothetical protein 657 55 textmining:652
Rv0403c mmpS1 membrane protein MmpS1 655 53 textmining:651
Rv2770c PPE44 PPE family protein PPE44 870 47 textmining:870
Rv0963c hyp hypothetical protein 806 46 textmining:805
Rv0288 esxH ESAT-6-like protein EsxH 512 42 textmining:512
Rv1320c adenylate cyclase 804 41 textmining:804
Rv1345 mbtM long-chain-fatty-acid--ACP ligase MbtM 803 41 textmining:803
Rv0796 Putative transposase for insertion sequence element IS6110; Involved in the transposition of the insertion sequence. 430 41 textmining:430

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

  • RefSeq: hypothetical protein
  • N-acyltransferase; N-acylation of L-amino acids (L-Tyr/L-Phe) with lauroyl-CoA, kcat/KM 5.9e3 M-1 s-1 (Grigg 2023, PMID 37328106)
  • First step of acyl-oxazolone (tyrazolone) lipid biosynthesis; tyz cluster tyzA(Rv2336)-tyzB(Rv2338c)-tyzC(Rv2337c)
  • Renamed tyzA
  • 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_216852.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — none above threshold
  • Sequence-level signal: ESM Atlas (EvolutionaryScale × BioHub) — exploratory
  • Curated reference: UniProt P95232 (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 79.5)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 9 functional partner(s)
  • 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)
  • Physico-chemical properties: ExPASy ProtParam method via Biopython (Gasteiger et al. 2005), computed from the MTBC0 sequence
  • Primary literature: Grigg JC, Copp JN, Krekhno JMC, Liu J, Ibrahimova A, Eltis LD (2023). Deciphering the biosynthesis of a novel lipid in Mycobacterium tuberculosis expands the known roles of the nitroreductase superfamily J Biol Chem 299(7):104924. doi:10.1016/j.jbc.2023.104924 PMID:37328106

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>mtbc0_002486|Rv2336|tyzA
MDVPHEQPALSSSKSNRFTSQRQTTGVGTTTVERLEPRLSPASRHITEAKAFGTECHVSSFTREQDPDRAVRVEQIHGEAYVAAGHVYESALDELGRLDNSNAEFILDKARGSTRETEVIYLHAVPAEPLSGSQGEGGLRIVGISAVGSIDDLSAFKAAKPSMGLAHQRKLYDAIEDLGHGGVKEIAALSVTADAPPTVSYSLIREVLRLYHRTGEKLIITFAMPAYAKMVMNFGRFAMPQVGEPFYAHRNNDPRTSNDLLLVPSIVEPSNFLENISRGVVTADDGPTARRRFATLCYMTDGLDDYFMPLTRQVLSEGIQDI