tgs2 Family assigned · medium auto-curated

H37Rv Rv3734c · MTBC0 mtbc0_003959 · 454 aa · 4208647–4210011 MTBC0 (-) · RefSeq NP_218251.1

Genomic neighbourhood (genome browser)

Open in full genome browser →

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-annotationwax ester/triacylglycerol synthase family O-acyltransferase
Revised (this work)Wax ester/triacylglycerol synthase family O-acyltransferase. Pfam: WS_DGAT_cat (PF03007.22), WS_DGAT_C (PF06974.19).
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.

In the literature (TB corpus sweep) 3 publications

3 TB publications mention this gene. 3 publication(s) discuss this gene (3 in a M. tuberculosis context, 1 in other mycobacteria — M. marinum (1)).

PublicationDate
Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains of the modern Beijing sublineage excessively accumulate triacylglycerols in vitro. doi:10.1016/j.tube.2019.101892 2020
Use of an adipocyte model to study the transcriptional adaptation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to store and degrade host fat. doi:10.1016/j.ijmyco.2015.10.003 2016
Lipid droplet-associated proteins are involved in the biosynthesis and hydrolysis of triacylglycerol in Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guerin. doi:10.1074/jbc.M110.135731 2010

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 0.58 (95% CI -2.03 to 4.20). 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, 2.3.1.75 · 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 Mb3761c · 100.0% identity
M. marinum MMAR_5271 · 85.5% identity
M. smegmatis MSMEG_6322 · 67.6% identity
M. orygis RJtmp_003841 · 100.0% identity
M. abscessus MAB_4544c · 51.2% 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 P9WKC7 SwissProt · reviewed · Evidence at protein level
UniProt nameProbable diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase tgs2
EC (curated) EC 2.3.1.20, EC 2.3.1.75
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. Also functions as a wax synthase, incorporating palmityl alcohol into wax esters in the presence of palmitoyl-CoA.

Functional vocabulary (eggNOG-mapper, orthology transfer)

COG category I Lipid transport and metabolism
eggNOG descriptionBelongs to the long-chain O-acyltransferase family
Orthologous groupCOG1020
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 0.34 · purifying
Polymorphic sites (≥ 0.1% of strains) 7 synonymous, 7 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.

Outgroup conservation (beyond the MTBC) Corynebacteriales

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
Genus-wide presence (~53 non-MTBC Mycobacterium) present in 51/53 (96%) · mean identity 74.5% · 4/4 closest MTBAP relatives
conserved across the genus (present in 51/53 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 53.0%
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 callNE · non-essential
What the call meansnon-essential
TA sites (Himar1) 19 in the ORF — 0 in the essential state, 0 growth-defect, 19 non-essential, 0 growth-advantage. Saturation 1.000, mean read count 231.947368421. 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.

Conditional fitness (RB-TnSeq, 95 conditions) pH

ConditionGroupDirectionlog2 fitnesst
pH 4.5 pH mutant enriched (loss advantageous) 1.513 11.958

Randomly-barcoded transposon screen across 95 carbon/nitrogen sources, pH, stressors and antibiotics (1 condition-specific phenotype(s) for this gene). A conditional fitness phenotype is a context lead, not a proven function, and never changes the verdict here. Note the blind spot: RB-TnSeq cannot measure essential genes. Source: RB-TnSeq 95-condition barcoded transposon screen, Mtb (PLoS Biol 2026, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3003529).

Proteomics (mass spectrometry) detected

MS detectiondetected in 12 of 16 independent MS datasets
Integrated abundance402.0 ppm · rank 499/3519 (85.8th 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)

Length454 aa
Molecular weight49.3 kDa
Theoretical pI6.36
GRAVY-0.018 (hydrophilic)
Aliphatic index99.3
Aromaticity0.057
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)

PfamAccessioni-EvalueResiduesDescription
WS_DGAT_catPF03007.22 4.4e-1014–262 Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase catalytic domain
WS_DGAT_CPF06974.19 3.7e-35303–448 WS/DGAT C-terminal domain

Structural search (AlphaFold DB model, Foldseek vs PDB — genome-wide) pLDDT 86.9

PDB hitprobTM-scoreE-valueDescription
6chj-assembly1_A 1.00 0.91 3.4e-49 sig 6chj-assembly1_A Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8
6chj-assembly1_B 1.00 0.89 5.5e-48 sig 6chj-assembly1_B Wax ester synthase/diacylglycerol acyltransferase from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8
7nxg-assembly1_A-2 1.00 0.88 2.4e-43 sig 7nxg-assembly1_A-2 Wax synthase 1 from Acinetobacter baylyi (AbWSD1) co-crystallized with myristic acid
4jn5-assembly1_A 1.00 0.59 4.8e-15 sig 4jn5-assembly1_A Crystal structures of the first condensation domain of the CDA synthetase
5du9-assembly2_B 1.00 0.60 6.9e-14 sig 5du9-assembly2_B First condensation domain of the calcium-dependent antibiotic synthetase in complex with substrate analogue 2a

Foldseek search of the AlphaFold DB model (mean pLDDT 86.9, 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) operon of 2

Upstream (5' on genome)Rv3733c (- strand, 13 bp gap)
Downstream (3' on genome)Rv3735 (+ strand, 198 bp gap)
Predicted operon Rv3733c · tgs2

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) Rv0081 (activates) · Rv0324 (represses) · mmpR5 (activates)

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: acrA1 (acyl-CoA-reductase AcrA), high confidence from genomic context alone (score 759 excluding text-mining).

PartnerProductScoreNo text-miningChannels (≥400)
Rv3097c lipY exp triacylglycerol lipase Lip 919 917 database:900
Rv3733c hyp hypothetical protein 906 907 ctx neighborhood:847 coexpression:415
Rv2252 dagK exp diacylglycerol kinase 900 901 database:900
Rv3391 acrA1 acyl-CoA-reductase AcrA 941 759 ctx cooccurence:745 textmining:765
Rv1543 oxidoreductase 941 731 ctx cooccurence:720 textmining:791
Rv0547c oxidoreductase 666 667 ctx cooccurence:657
Rv2627c hyp hypothetical protein 650 637 ctx cooccurence:405
Rv0825c hyp hypothetical protein 598 599 ctx cooccurence:592
Rv3735 hyp hypothetical protein 515 515 ctx neighborhood:508
Rv3825c pks2 exp phthioceranic/hydroxyphthioceranic acid synthase 635 504 experimental:441
Rv2048c pks12 exp polyketide synthase 527 500 experimental:441
Rv2940c mas exp multifunctional mycocerosic acid synthase 586 499 experimental:441
Rv2933 ppsC exp phthiocerol synthesis polyketide synthase type I PpsC 526 498 experimental:441
Rv1527c pks5 exp polyketide synthase 526 498 experimental:441
Rv3736 AraC/XylS family transcriptional regulator 482 482

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

  • Legacy H37Rv annotation: diacyglycerol O-acyltransferase
  • MTBC0 PGAP product: wax ester/triacylglycerol synthase family O-acyltransferase
  • Pfam (hmmscan --cut_ga): WS_DGAT_cat PF03007.22 (E=4e-101), WS_DGAT_C PF06974.19 (E=4e-35)
  • (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_218251.1)
  • Domains: Pfam-A via hmmscan --cut_ga — WS_DGAT_cat (PF03007.22), WS_DGAT_C (PF06974.19)
  • 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 P9WKC7 (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 86.9)
  • Interaction network: STRING v12.0 (Szklarczyk et al. 2023, doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1000), taxon 83332, CC-BY 4.0 — 39 functional partner(s); context anchor acrA1
  • 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

>mtbc0_003959|Rv3734c|tgs2
MDLMMPNDSMFLFIESREHPMHVGGLSLFEPPQGAGPEFVREFTERLVANDEFQPMFRKHPATIGGGIARVAWAYDDDIDIDYHVRRSALPSPGRVRDLLELTSRLHTSLLDRHRPLWELHVVEGLNDGRFAMYTKMHHALIDGVSAMKLAQRTLSADPDDAEVRAIWNLPPRPRTRPPSDGSSLLDALFKMAGSVVGLAPSTLKLARAALLEQQLTLPFAAPHSMFNVKVGGARRCAAQSWSLDRIKSVKQAAGVTVNDAVLAMCAGALRYYLIERNALPDRPLIAMVPVSLRSKEDADAGGNLVGSVLCNLATHVDDPAQRIQTISASMDGNKKVLSELPQLQVLALSALNMAPLTLAGVPGFLSAVPPPFNIVISNVPGPVDPLYYGTARLDGSYPLSNIPDGQALNITLVNNAGNLDFGLVGCRRSVPHLQRLLAHLESSLKDLEQAVGI