tgs3 Resolved · high auto-curated

H37Rv Rv3234c · MTBC0 - · 271 aa · 3610374–3611189 H37Rv (-) · RefSeq NP_217751.1

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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)diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase
MTBC0 PGAP re-annotation
Revised (this work)Diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase. Pfam: WS_DGAT_cat (PF03007.22).
Functional category (TubercuList)lipid metabolism

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) 4 publications

4 TB publications mention this gene. 4 publication(s) discuss this gene (4 in a M. tuberculosis context, 1 in other mycobacteria — M. abscessus (1)).

PublicationDate
Long-term chemotherapy of C57BL/6 mice infected with epidemiologically important Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains and molecular insight into host-pathogen interplay. doi:10.1016/j.micpath.2025.107919 2025
Immunological aspects of host-pathogen crosstalk in the co-pathogenesis of diabetes and latent tuberculosis. doi:10.3389/fcimb.2022.957512 2022
Proteomic changes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv under hyperglycemic conditions favour its growth through altered expression of Tgs3(Rv3234c) and supportive proteins (Rv0547c, AcrA1 and Mpa). doi:10.1016/j.tube.2019.03.006 2019
MAB_3551c encodes the primary triacylglycerol synthase involved in lipid accumulation in Mycobacterium abscessus. doi:10.1111/mmi.13482 2016

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.

CRISPRi vulnerability

Vulnerability index 0.76 (95% CI -1.53 to 4.14). 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)

Mycobrowser functionMay be involved in synthesis of triacylglycerol
Mycobrowser EC 2.3.1.20 · agrees with the atlas

The legacy Mycobrowser record is shown for verification. Mycobrowser is no longer maintained; its EC numbers predate recent nomenclature revisions, so a class change usually reflects re-numbering, not a conflict.

Orthologues (reciprocal best hits across mycobacteria)

M. bovis Mb3262c · 99.6% identity
M. marinum MMAR_1311 · 83.1% identity
M. smegmatis MSMEG_1882 · 72.9% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_003334 · 99.6% identity
M. abscessus MAB_3551c · 63.2% 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 P9WKC5 SwissProt · reviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameProbable diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase tgs3
EC (curated) EC 2.3.1.20
Curated functionCatalyzes the terminal and only committed step in triacylglycerol synthesis by using diacylglycerol and fatty acyl CoA as substrates. Required for storage lipid synthesis..; FUNCTION: Upon expression in E.coli functions as a triacylglycerol synthase, making triacylglycerol (TG) from diolein and long-chain fatty acyl-CoA. Has no wax synthase activity to produce wax esters.

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category I Lipid transport and metabolism
Preferred nametgs3
eggNOG descriptionBelongs to the long-chain O-acyltransferase family
Orthologous groupCOG1020
EC number EC 2.3.1.20
KEGG orthology K00635
KEGG pathways map00561, map01100
KEGG modules M00089
Gene Ontology (60) GO:0000302, GO:0001666, GO:0003674, GO:0003824, GO:0004144, GO:0005575, GO:0005618, GO:0005623, GO:0005886, GO:0006629, GO:0006638, GO:0006639 +48 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 0.441 · purifying
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 5 synonymous, 6 missense, 0 nonsense, 2 frameshift
Disruption 2 distinct premature-stop/frameshift site(s); most common in 62.27% of strains (90417) · reference-fixed

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) Corynebacteriales

M. canettii dN/dS (deep-divergence selection) 0.074 (low power) · 7 consensus substitution(s) · 1 canettii-fixed disruption
low power (7 canettii-consensus substitution(s)); present in M. canettii but dN/dS not reliable; carries 1 M. canettii-clade-fixed disruptive substitution(s) (candidate lineage-specific pseudogenisation — cross-check the intra-MTBC pseudogene layer)
Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 52/53 (98%) · mean identity 82.2% · 4/4 closest MTBAP relatives
conserved across the genus (present in 52/53 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 5/13 non-Mycobacterium reference genomes (down to Corynebacteriales) · mean identity 52.4%
detected across the order Corynebacteriales (Corynebacterium/Nocardia/Rhodococcus/…) but not in more distant Actinomycetia — a Corynebacteriales-level 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 callGA · growth-advantage
What the call meansgrowth-advantage: insertions enriched
TA sites (Himar1) 18 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 1 non-essential, 17 growth-advantage. Saturation 0.944, mean read count 271.411764706. 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 8 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance25.7 ppm · rank 2165/3519 (38.5th 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)

Length271 aa
Molecular weight30.4 kDa
Theoretical pI9.83
GRAVY-0.272 (hydrophilic)
Aliphatic index97.2
Aromaticity0.066
Instability index42.0 (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)

PfamAccessioni-EvalueResiduesDescription
WS_DGAT_catPF03007.22 1.2e-885–270 Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase catalytic domain

Structural search (AlphaFold DB model, Foldseek vs PDB — genome-wide) pLDDT 81.9

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
6chj-assembly1_A 1.00 0.55 2.5e-15 sig 6chj-assembly1_A Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8
7nxg-assembly1_A-2 1.00 0.78 2.4e-12 sig 7nxg-assembly1_A-2 Wax synthase 1 from Acinetobacter baylyi (AbWSD1) co-crystallized with myristic acid
6chj-assembly1_B 1.00 0.62 6.2e-14 sig 6chj-assembly1_B Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8
8jbr-assembly1_A 1.00 0.74 1.7e-05 sig 8jbr-assembly1_A Structure of McyA2-CAPCP
7c1p-assembly3_C 1.00 0.67 3.2e-06 sig 7c1p-assembly3_C Crystal structure of the starter condensation domain of the rhizomide synthetase RzmA mutant H140V, R148A

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 81.9, 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)ppk2 (- strand, 616 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)Rv3235 (+ strand, 110 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 (3 TF) raaS (represses) · Rv2011c (represses) · Rv2034 (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: Rv3233c (Rv3233c, (MTCY20B11.08c), len: 196 aa. Possible triacylglycerol synthase (See Daniel et al., 2004), similar to C-terminus of Q9RIU8|SCM11.13), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 995 excluding text-mining).

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv3233c Rv3233c, (MTCY20B11.08c), len: 196 aa. Possible triacylglycerol synthase (See Daniel et al., 2004), similar to C-terminus of Q9RIU8|SCM11.13 999 995 ctx neighborhood:773 fusion:900 cooccurence:774 textmining:870
Rv2252 dagK exp diacylglycerol kinase 900 901 database:900
Rv3097c lipY exp triacylglycerol lipase Lip 900 901 database:900
Rv3232c ppk2 polyphosphate kinase 860 765 ctx neighborhood:721 textmining:431
Rv3231c hyp hypothetical protein 906 742 ctx neighborhood:740 textmining:652
Rv3235 hyp hypothetical protein 597 598 ctx neighborhood:594
Rv0501 galE2 UDP-glucose 4-epimerase GalE 571 572 ctx cooccurence:555
Rv3391 acrA1 acyl-CoA-reductase AcrA 915 571 ctx cooccurence:547 textmining:811
Rv0502 hyp hypothetical protein 549 550 ctx cooccurence:482
Rv3230c stearoyl-CoA 9-desaturase electron transfer protein 741 538 ctx neighborhood:537 textmining:463
Rv3229c desA3 stearoyl-CoA 9-desaturase 536 526 ctx neighborhood:435
Rv2048c pks12 exp polyketide synthase 533 506 experimental:441
Rv2627c hyp hypothetical protein 520 503
Rv2940c mas exp multifunctional mycocerosic acid synthase 530 502 experimental:441
Rv1527c pks5 exp polyketide synthase 529 501 experimental:441

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

  • Annotation from H37Rv (no MTBC0 1:1 anchor; H37Rv protein used): diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase
  • Pfam (hmmscan --cut_ga): WS_DGAT_cat PF03007.22 (E=1e-88)
  • (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_217751.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — WS_DGAT_cat (PF03007.22)
  • 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 COG1020
  • Curated reference: UniProt P9WKC5 (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)
  • 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 81.9)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 46 functional partner(s); context anchor Rv3233c
  • 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: none located yet; annotation rests on the domain/homology sources above.

Ancestral MTBC0 protein sequence

>H37Rv|Rv3234c|tgs3
MVTRLSASDASFYQLENTATPMYVGLLLILRRPRAGLSYEALLETVEQRLPQIPRYRQKVQEVKLGLARPVWIDDRDFDITYHVRRSALPSPGSDEQLHELIARLAARPLDKSRPLWEMYLVEGLEKNRIALYTKSHQALINGVTALAIGHVIADRTRRPPAFPEDIWVPERDPGTTRLLLRAVGDWLVRPGAQLQAVGSAVAGLVTNSGQLVETGRKVLDIARTVARGTAPSSPLNATVSRNRRFTVARASLDDYRTVRARYDCDSTTWC