tyzC Resolved · high

H37Rv Rv2337c · MTBC0 mtbc0_002487 · 372 aa · 2636619–2637737 MTBC0 (-) · RefSeq NP_216853.1

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Annotation: from legacy to revised

Legacy (H37Rv / Mycobrowser)hypothetical protein
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotationhypothetical protein
Revised (this work)TyzC, a flavin-dependent oxidase (FDO) of the nitroreductase (NTR) superfamily acting in acyl-oxazolone biosynthesis. RefSeq leaves this locus 'hypothetical protein'. In the tyz cluster, TyzC catalyses the O2-dependent desaturation of the N-acyl-L-Tyr produced by TyzA, while TyzB (a ThiF homolog) catalyses its ATP-dependent cyclisation to the acyl-oxazolone; the substrate preferences of TyzB/TyzC set the identity of the final lipid (Grigg 2023). This work expands the NTR superfamily to a set of broadly distributed FDOs (five in Mtb) that desaturate lipid species. Experimentally characterised enzyme.
Functional category (TubercuList)conserved hypotheticals

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) 1 publication

Found under: H37Rv (1).

1 TB publication mentions this gene. 1 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

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.

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index 1.21 (95% CI -0.71 to 3.98). 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 classes this locus among conserved hypotheticals; the atlas now assigns a functional handle (COG category, 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 Mb2365c · 99.7% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_002418 · 99.7% 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 P95233 TrEMBL · unreviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameNitroreductase domain-containing protein

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category C Energy production and conversion
Preferred namemoeY
eggNOG descriptioncoenzyme F420-1:gamma-L-glutamate ligase activity
Orthologous groupCOG0778

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 0.707 · relaxed/neutral
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 3 synonymous, 5 missense, 1 nonsense, 1 frameshift
Disruption 2 distinct premature-stop/frameshift site(s); most common in 0.17% of strains (241) · 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) · 1 consensus substitution(s)
low power (1 canettii-consensus substitution(s)); present in M. canettii but dN/dS not reliable
Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 2/53 (4%) · mean identity 65.4% · 1/4 closest MTBAP relatives
present in a subset of the genus (2/53 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) 11 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 11 non-essential, 0 growth-advantage. Saturation 0.818, mean read count 149.333333333. 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 10 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance12.7 ppm · rank 2573/3519 (26.9th 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)

Length372 aa
Molecular weight41.3 kDa
Theoretical pI9.98
GRAVY-0.161 (hydrophilic)
Aliphatic index89.2
Aromaticity0.075
Instability index53.6 (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 90.5

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
2ymv-assembly1_A 1.00 0.76 4.7e-17 sig 2ymv-assembly1_A Structure of Reduced M Smegmatis 5246, a homologue of M.Tuberculosis Acg
2i7h-assembly1_A 1.00 0.67 2.6e-05 sig 2i7h-assembly1_A Crystal Structure of the Nitroreductase-like Family Protein from Bacillus cereus
3gfa-assembly1_B 1.00 0.64 1.1e-04 sig 3gfa-assembly1_B Crystal structure of a putative nitroreductase in complex with fmn (cd3205) from clostridium difficile 630 at 1.35 A resolution
2wzw-assembly1_A 1.00 0.55 2.1e-05 sig 2wzw-assembly1_A Crystal structure of the FMN-dependent nitroreductase NfnB from Mycobacterium smegmatis in complex with NADPH
3ek3-assembly1_A-2 1.00 0.61 4.8e-05 sig 3ek3-assembly1_A-2 Crystal structure of Nitroreductase with Bound FMN (YP_211706.1) from Bacteroides fragilis NCTC 9343 at 1.70 A resolution

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 90.5, 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)Rv2336 (+ strand, 63 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)moeW (- strand, 119 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 (1 TF) Rv1990c (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: moeW (molybdopterin biosynthesis protein MoeW), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 813 excluding text-mining). This association is the citable seed of a function hypothesis for this hypothetical protein.

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv3323c moaX exp MoaD-MoaE fusion protein MoaX 838 814 coexpression:445 experimental:473
Rv2338c moeW molybdopterin biosynthesis protein MoeW 813 813 ctx neighborhood:505 cooccurence:443
Rv1004c membrane protein 786 777 ctx cooccurence:766
Rv2209 integral membrane protein 769 769 ctx cooccurence:764
Rv2490c PE_PGRS43 PE-PGRS family protein PE_PGRS43 769 769 ctx cooccurence:769
Rv0355c PPE8 PPE family protein PPE8 768 768 ctx cooccurence:767
Rv3347c PPE55 PPE family protein PPE55 768 768 ctx cooccurence:767
Rv1452c PE_PGRS28 PE-PGRS family protein PE_PGRS28 767 767 ctx cooccurence:767
Rv3350c PPE56 PPE family protein PPE56 766 767 ctx cooccurence:766
Rv0341 iniB isoniazid inducible protein IniB 762 763 ctx cooccurence:762
Rv0304c PPE5 PPE family protein PPE5 762 762 ctx cooccurence:761
Rv1651c PE_PGRS30 PE-PGRS family protein PE_PGRS30 761 761 ctx cooccurence:761
Rv1917c PPE34 PPE family protein PPE34 761 761 ctx cooccurence:760
Rv3343c PPE54 PPE family protein PPE54 760 760 ctx cooccurence:760
Rv2819c csm5 CRISPR type III-associated RAMP protein Csm5 759 759 ctx cooccurence:751

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
  • Flavin-dependent oxidase (nitroreductase superfamily); O2-dependent desaturation of N-acyl-L-Tyr (Grigg 2023, PMID 37328106)
  • tyz cluster tyzA(Rv2336)-tyzB(Rv2338c)-tyzC(Rv2337c); acyl-oxazolone (tyrazolone) lipid biosynthesis
  • Renamed tyzC
  • 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_216853.1)
  • 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 COG0778
  • Curated reference: UniProt P95233 (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 90.5)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 157 functional partner(s); context anchor moeW
  • 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_002487|Rv2337c|tyzC
MRAGRWGPGMTGLDPAEFLSLVEAAALAPSADNRREVQLEHAGRRVRLWGDQTWRSAPEHRRIMSLVAIGAAVENVKLRAGRLGFETKVCWFPDSGNPGLVAEIDVDRLPQTRVDPIEVAIERRRTNRRVRFRGPPLSQGELGALSAEATGIDGIQLHWFDSPETRKQILRLVRLAETERFRSRELHEELFSAVRFDIGWTASSDDGLPPGSLEVEAWMRPMFRGLRHWRVLRLLRTVGMHHALGLRAAYLPCRLAPHVGALTTSLDLASGALTAGAVFERIWLRTTLLGAELQPFAASAVLSLPACEWVAPHVRAALVGGWNLLAPGHWPMMVFRIGHARAPSVRTMRQSVEAYCYAPAERSGSDSESRFA