Structural domains comprising this superfamily share the structure of Rv1738, a protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis that is strongly implicated in the onset of non-replicating persistence, and thereby latent tuberculosis.

Its structure was recently solved through racemic protein crystallography and show how this protein, previously characterised as a domain of unknown function, shares remarkable similarity with bacterial hibernation factors, despite very low sequence similarity. Based on this structure it was predicted that Rv1738, highly up-regulated in conditions that mimic the onset of persistence, helps trigger dormancy by association with the bacterial ribosome PMID:25831534.