The dark proteome: translation from noncanonical open reading frames.

Bradley W Wright, Zixin Yi, Jonathan S Weissman, Jin Chen

Trends in cell biology 2022 Mar

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Omics-based technologies have revolutionized our understanding of the coding potential of the genome. In particular, these studies revealed widespread unannotated open reading frames (ORFs) throughout genomes and that these regions have the potential to encode novel functional (micro-)proteins and/or hold regulatory roles. However, despite their genomic prevalence, relatively few of these noncanonical ORFs have been functionally characterized, likely in part due to their under-recognition by the broader scientific community. The few that have been investigated in detail have demonstrated their essentiality in critical and divergent biological processes. As such, here we aim to discuss recent advances in understanding the diversity of noncanonical ORFs and their roles, as well as detail biologically important examples within the context of the mammalian genome. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Bradley W Wright, Zixin Yi, Jonathan S Weissman, Jin Chen. The dark proteome: translation from noncanonical open reading frames. Trends in cell biology. 2022 Mar;32(3):243-258