title: Twenty thousand ORFan microbial protein families for the biologist?
abstract: The genomes of most newly sequenced organisms contain a significant fraction of ORFs (open reading frames) that match no other sequence in the databases. We refer to these singleton ORFs as sequence ORFans. Because little can be learned about ORFans by homology, the origin and functions of ORFans remain a mystery. However, in this era of full genome sequencing, it seems that ORFans have been underemphasized. In this minireview, we draw attention to the increasing number of ORFans and to the consequences of this growth to biological research in the postgenomic era.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Department of Computer Science, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Siew
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fischer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D016681:Genome, Fungal; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D011506:Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins