Rv2401A Family assigned · low auto-curated

H37Rv Rv2401A · MTBC0 - · 67 aa · 2698042–2698245 H37Rv (-) · RefSeq YP_177670.1

Conflicting signals on this page. Two layers of this record disagree. Neither has been suppressed; what follows says what is known and what the disagreement means.
  • Both statements stand. UniProt labels this protein "Evidence at protein level", a curator's judgement whose basis (mass spectrometry, structure, antibody, Edman sequencing) this atlas does not record; PaxDb counts detections in 16 aggregated mass-spectrometry datasets and none detects it, which is not evidence of absence. No other channel in this atlas corroborates the label: no usable Ribo-seq listing, no experimental structure and no experimentally supported annotation on the UniProt entry. Read it as UniProt's claim, not as something this atlas could verify. (uniprot protein level vs ms undetected, 2026-10-09)

Genomic neighbourhood (genome browser)

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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)membrane protein
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotation—
Revised (this work)Membrane protein.
Functional category (TubercuList)cell wall and cell processes

Auto-curated: this verdict and function were generated by rules from PGAP + Pfam + Foldseek and have not been hand-reviewed.

Annotated on the H37Rv protein: this gene has no 1:1 ancestral MTBC0 anchor (PE/PPE, paralogue, IS element, or otherwise unanchored CDS).

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) no title/abstract mention

No publication mentions this gene in its title or abstract — not under its H37Rv locus tag, not under its gene name, and not under any ortholog identifier. Its annotation rests on sequence/structure evidence, with no primary study behind it.

Scope of the sweep: What was actually swept: the H37Rv locus tag and the ortholog locus tags (M. bovis Mb…, M. marinum MMAR_…, M. smegmatis MSMEG_…, M. leprae ML…, M. abscessus MAB_…), plus the gene name where one exists. NOT swept: protein and enzyme names, including family shorthands such as Ldt(Mt4) or VapC28, and their orthographic variants. An absent locus-tag mention is therefore evidence about the TAG, and only indirect evidence about the protein (P18.14).

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 disorder19% of residues (metapredict) · mean AlphaFold pLDDT 89.4
Disordered regions1 IDR(s), longest 13 aa [0-13]

carries a substantial disordered region (13/67 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).

Genomic-neighbour overlap (structural caveat) antiparallel · 8 % of gene

NeighbourRv2401 (Rv2401, + strand)
Overlap16 bp, 8 % of this gene's length

antiparallel overlap: this gene may inherit essentiality/conservation signal from its neighbour through shared TA sites or promoter constraint, without any protein of its own being produced (cf. Rv2438A/nadE) Signals attributed to this gene (Tn-seq essentiality via shared TA sites, conservation via promoter constraint) should be cross-checked against the neighbour before being read as its own. P20.1, derived from GFF3 gene coordinates, 2026-08-03.

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index -4.12 (95% CI -10.52 to 2.83). 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, supplementary Table S2 'mmc3.xlsx', bulk import via Europe PMC -- supersedes the per-gene pebble.rockefeller.edu scrape of phase46_crispri_vulnerability.py).

Caveat on this estimate. Bosch et al. flag this gene's vulnerability estimate as NOT certain, and here that call has a mechanical cause visible in the library itself: every guide targeting this gene is >=21 nt (str_span=0.295 on a 0-1 scale, near the genome floor), and guide repression strength saturates from 21 nt on -- so the library never sampled a partial knockdown for this gene, only the near-maximal repression plateau. The dose-response fit (and this VI) is therefore essentially unconstrained by data, not merely uncertain -- a limitation of the CRISPRi library design for the non-essential class (Bosch et al. 2021), not a defect in this specific measurement. n_guides=5 is descriptive only and does not predict this. Do not cite this VI as a standalone vulnerability claim.

Orthologues (reciprocal best hits across mycobacteria)

M. bovis Mb2424c · 98.5% identity
M. leprae ML0614 · 67.7% identity
M. marinum MMAR_3719 · 67.7% identity
M. smegmatis MSMEG_4534 · 58.1% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_002483 · 98.5% identity
M. abscessus MAB_1651 · 54.8% 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 Q79FE4 TrEMBL · unreviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt namePossible conserved membrane protein

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

Orthologous group2AUGB

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.

Outgroup conservation (beyond the MTBC) Mycobacteriaceae

M. canettii dN/dS (deep-divergence selection) 0.0 (low power) · 1 consensus substitution(s)
low power (1 canettii-consensus substitution(s)); present in M. canettii but dN/dS not reliable
Limitation: dN/dS mixes fixed canettii-H37Rv divergence with intra-canettii polymorphism, and is not polarised (the per-gene repolarisation is not viable: 79 % of the consensus SPDI lie outside the polarised table).
Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 53/53 (100%) · mean identity 69.2% · 4/4 closest MTBAP relatives
conserved across the genus (present in 53/53 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 1/13 non-Mycobacterium reference genomes (down to Mycobacteriaceae) · mean identity 54.8%
detected in the sister family Mycobacteriaceae (M. abscessus) but not in the broader Corynebacteriales — a Mycobacteriaceae-restricted gene (single-genome rung: interpret with care)

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 callUncertain · uncertain
What the call meansuncertain (short or TA-poor ORF): no call possible
TA sites (Himar1) 2 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 2 non-essential, 0 growth-advantage. Saturation 0.500, mean read count 34. A region of the protein devoid of TA sites is invisible to this assay: nothing can be inferred about it, in either direction.
1 of these 2 sites are exclusively this ORF's; Measured, not hypothetical: 1 of this ORF's 2 TA sites lies inside Rv2401 (1 site), leaving 1 site that is exclusively its own. A transposon insertion cannot be assigned to one reading frame rather than the other, so the essentiality call rests on that 1 exclusive site — too few to carry a call on its own.
CaveatStatistically thin call: only 2 TA (Himar1) sites in the whole ORF (atlas median 13; genes under 300 nt typically have very few). A DeJesus 2017 call built on so few independent observations is less robust than the same call on a longer gene, in either direction. Cross-check against the CRISPRi vulnerability index (independent of TA-site density) and, if this gene overlaps a neighbour (see Genomic-neighbour overlap section below), verify how many of its TA sites actually fall inside its own ORF. (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.

Proteomics (mass spectrometry) not detected

Not detected in the mass-spectrometry datasets integrated by PaxDb. This is not evidence of absence, and this atlas can say which bias dominates, because it measured it on its own 482 undetected proteins. Size is the main factor: undetected proteins have a median length of 145 aa against 295 aa for detected ones, and 25.3 % of them are shorter than 100 aa against 6.0 %. Predicted localisation matters far less than usually assumed: detection rates are 89.3 % for globular, 84.9 % for transmembrane, 88.0 % for lipoproteins and 77.8 % for signal-peptide proteins — so a short protein is under-sampled whatever its predicted compartment, and hydrophobicity alone is a weak excuse. Condition-specific expression and few tryptic peptides (PE/PPE repeats) add to this.

Predicted localisation (DeepTMHMM + lipobox)

Predictionpredicted membrane protein (1 TM helix)
DeepTMHMM classTM
TM helices (DeepTMHMM)1

Transmembrane topology and signal peptide from DeepTMHMM (deep-learning reference predictor); lipoproteins from a (myco)bacterial lipobox motif. A sequence-based prediction of subcellular context.

Physico-chemical properties (computed, ProtParam)

Length67 aa
Molecular weight7.4 kDa
Theoretical pI10.57
GRAVY0.6 (hydrophobic)
Aliphatic index123.9
Aromaticity0.104
Instability index52.5 (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 (hmmscan --cut_ga scan completed).

3D structure (interactive — Mol*/pdbe-molstar)

No experimental structure is deposited for this gene: showing the AlphaFold DB predicted model (mean pLDDT 89.4, confident), coloured by per-residue confidence (dark blue = very high, orange/red = low — treat low-confidence regions as unreliable, especially termini and loops). Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.

Genomic context (neighbours & predicted operon)

Upstream (5' on genome)Rv2401 (+ strand, -16 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)Rv2402 (+ strand, 283 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).

Published operon evidence (two independent sources)

Roback 2007 (logistic regression: distance + expression correlation, 474 microarrays) no multi-gene operon predicted (singleton)
REMap 2016 (RNA-seq coverage continuity, CDC1551, tag MT2473) exponential phase: operon of 5, Rv2397c · Rv2398c · Rv2399c · Rv2400c · Rv2401A (coverage 17.34)
expressed, no multi-gene operon (stationary phase, coverage 15.87) — agrees with the distance heuristic above

Two independent published operon maps, cited alongside the distance heuristic above: an association corroborating or contradicting the heuristic, never proof of shared function. REMap's RNA-seq coverage continuity is the most direct of the three signals; Roback's logistic regression and the intergenic-distance heuristic are statistical proxies.

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

Explore full network →

Node colour = verdict, dashed = still uncharacterised; 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: Rv2402 (trehalase), high confidence (score 713, all STRING channels except text-mining; the partner is chosen on its genomic-context evidence).

All 4 partner(s) at medium confidence are shown. None rests on an interaction measured in M. tuberculosis itself.

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv2402 trehalase 713 713 ctx neighborhood:711
Rv2400c subI sulfate ABC transporter substrate-binding lipoprotein SubI 545 545 ctx neighborhood:544
Rv1751 oxidoreductase 544 544 ctx neighborhood:544
Rv2397c cysA1 sulfate ABC transporter ATP-binding protein CysA 480 481 ctx neighborhood:478

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.

Where the experimental evidence comes from, and why it matters here. STRING's experimental channel fuses interactions measured in M. tuberculosis with interactions measured in another organism and transferred to this pair by orthology. The two are not equivalent for this atlas, whose standing rule is that better studied elsewhere is not a function established in M. tuberculosis. Measured on the served network: of the 38 229 partner pairs shown across the atlas, 13 483 partner rows carry a non-zero experimental channel, and only 106 pairs rest on an interaction measured in M. tuberculosis itself — 0.3 % of the network. Those 106 are long-established complexes (ESX-1/ESAT-6, RNA polymerase with CarD and RbpA, the Pup–Mpa proteasome, gyrase, Emb, GarA with PknB and PknG, the Rel modules); no still-uncharacterised gene is among them. The reason is not a gap in this atlas but in the literature: there is almost no experimental interactome of this bacterium, IntAct holding 134 curated protein pairs for a ~4 000-gene proteome. A exp (transferred) badge is therefore a lead, never a measurement, and an absence of badge is not evidence that the pair does not interact.

Evidence

  • Annotation from H37Rv (no MTBC0 1:1 anchor; H37Rv protein used): membrane protein
  • (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 YP_177670.1)
  • 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 2AUGB
  • Curated reference: UniProt Q79FE4 (TrEMBL, unreviewed; Evidence at protein level)
  • 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 89.4)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 4 functional partner(s); context anchor Rv2402
  • Essentiality: genome-wide transposon mutagenesis in H37Rv — DeJesus et al. 2017 (mBio, doi:10.1128/mBio.02133-16, CC BY)
  • 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)
  • Physico-chemical properties: ExPASy ProtParam method via Biopython (Gasteiger et al. 2005), computed from the MTBC0 sequence
  • Predicted localisation: DeepTMHMM (Hallgren et al. 2022, doi:10.1101/2022.04.08.487609) for transmembrane topology and signal peptide
  • Primary literature: none located yet; annotation rests on the domain/homology sources above.

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>H37Rv|Rv2401A|
MGPMNGFLSWWDGVELWLSGLPFALQALAVMPVVLALAYFTAALLDALLGRVIQLIRRARRPDQAPR