Novel regions – novel Open Reading Frames or as nORFs

Novel regions – novel Open Reading Frames or as nORFs

Subject: Science and technology

Context: A group of scientists have given possible explanation and peak into why even after decade of Human Genome Project only 1.5% of the entire human genome codes for proteins.

Concept:

• In the last seven years, the team extensively studied the human genome and has now catalogued 1,94,000 novel regions.
• It can give idea about the conundrum that why only 1.5% of the entire human genome codes for proteins even decade after Human Genome Project.
• These new findings in genome study can’t be defined by our current ‘definition’ of a gene and thus called Novel region
• Scientists claim that nORFs do have physiological consequences and a majority of mutations that are often annotated as benign have to be re-interpreted. Thus, there is need to redesign our existing drugs that target only the known proteins in the parasite
• New genomic and proteomic technologies, algorithms have helped find the new findings.
• These regions are also broadly involved in diseases. The nORFs were seen as dysregulated (they could either be mutated, upregulated, or downregulated, or they could be uniquely present) in 22 cancer types
• These regions were uniquely present in the cancer tissues and not present in the control tissue. They found that some nORF disruptions strongly correlated with the survival of patients
• nORFs proteins can form structures, can undergo biochemical regulation like known proteins and be targeted by drugs in case they are disrupted in diseases
• nORFs were also found in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite which causes the deadliest form of malaria.