Identification of putative regulatory upstream ORFs in the yeast genome using heuristics and evolutionary conservation
2007

Identifying Regulatory Upstream ORFs in Yeast

Sample size: 252 publication Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Cvijović Marija, Dalevi Daniel, Bilsland Elizabeth, Kemp Graham JL, Sunnerhagen Per

Primary Institution: Göteborg University

Hypothesis

The study aims to identify novel upstream open reading frames (uORFs) in the yeast genome that have a translational regulatory role.

Conclusion

The study found that evolutionary conservation of uORFs in yeasts can be traced up to 100 million years of separation, and identified characteristics that can help detect conserved uORFs.

Supporting Evidence

  • 34 conserved uORFs from 32 genes were predicted to be functional.
  • Conserved uORFs showed a much higher evolutionary conservation than randomly selected uORFs.
  • Functional content analysis identified an overrepresentation of genes involved in transcriptional control and development.

Takeaway

Scientists looked for special parts of yeast genes that help control how proteins are made, and found some that have been around for a very long time.

Methodology

The study used comparative genomics to identify conserved uORFs in the yeast genome and developed a scoring system to rank their potential functionality.

Limitations

The derived rules may not detect most uORFs of types other than those similar to the GCN4 locus.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1186/1471-2105-8-295

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