title: sORFs.org: a repository of small ORFs identified by ribosome profiling.
abstract: With the advent of ribosome profiling, a next generation sequencing technique providing a "snap-shot'' of translated mRNA in a cell, many short open reading frames (sORFs) with ribosomal activity were identified. Follow-up studies revealed the existence of functional peptides, so-called micropeptides, translated from these 'sORFs', indicating a new class of bio-active peptides. Over the last few years, several micropeptides exhibiting important cellular functions were discovered. However, ribosome occupancy does not necessarily imply an actual function of the translated peptide, leading to the development of various tools assessing the coding potential of sORFs. Here, we introduce sORFs.org (http://www.sorfs.org), a novel database for sORFs identified using ribosome profiling. Starting from ribosome profiling, sORFs.org identifies sORFs, incorporates state-of-the-art tools and metrics and stores results in a public database. Two query interfaces are provided, a default one enabling quick lookup of sORFs and a BioMart interface providing advanced query and export possibilities. At present, sORFs.org harbors 263 354 sORFs that demonstrate ribosome occupancy, originating from three different cell lines: HCT116 (human), E14_mESC (mouse) and S2 (fruit fly). sORFs.org aims to provide an extensive sORFs database accessible to researchers with limited bioinformatics knowledge, thus enabling easy integration into personal projects.
authors.affiliation: Lab of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics (BioBix), Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium volodimir.olexiouk@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Volodimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Olexiouk
authors.affiliation: Lab of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics (BioBix), Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1677-9533
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Crappé
authors.affiliation: Lab of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics (BioBix), Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Verbruggen
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Protein Research, VIB, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Department of Biochemistry, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Verhegen
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Protein Research, VIB, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Department of Biochemistry, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Lennart
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Martens
authors.affiliation: Lab of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics (BioBix), Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium gerben.menschaert@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Gerben
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Menschaert
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D051379:Mice; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000737:chemistry; D012270:Ribosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides; D012333:RNA, Messenger