Deciphering the roles of unknown/uncharacterized genes in plant development and stress responses

Abstract

In recent years, numerous genes that encode proteins with specific domains that participate in different biological processes or have different molecular functions have been identified. A class of genes with typical domains whose function has rarely been identified and another type of genes with no typical domains have attracted increasing attentions. As many of these so-called as unknown/uncharacterized (U/U) genes are involved in important processes, such as plant growth and plant stress resistance, there is much interest in deciphering their molecular roles. Here, we summarize our current understanding of these genes, including their structures, classifications, and roles in plant growth and stress resistance, summarize progress in the methods used to decipher the roles of these genes, and provide new research perspectives. Unveiling the molecular functions of unknown/uncharacterized genes may suggest strategies to fine-tune important physiological processes in plants, which will enrich the functional network system of plants and provide more possibilities for adaptive improvement of plants.

Evidence-based unification of potato gene models with the UniTato collaborative genome browser

“…The requirements of periodic annotation curation and incorporating experimental data and novel findings into the annotation process are inherent also to other plant species ( Yandell and Ence, 2012 ; Kersey, 2019 ). Even in model plants, up to 40% of protein-coding genes can still be of unknown function, suggesting that much work is still required to fully resolve, annotate, and understand most plant genomes ( Horan et al., 2008 ; Wang et al., 2023 ). We propose that a similar approach for evidence- and community-based revision as the one presented here can be utilized for any other insufficiently annotated species, for which genome models of closely related species are available.…”

DataSheet_1.pdf

“…The requirements of periodic annotation curation and incorporating experimental data and novel findings into the annotation process are inherent also to other plant species (Yandell and Ence, 2012;Kersey, 2019). Even in model plants, up to 40% of protein-coding genes can still be of unknown function, suggesting that much work is still required to fully resolve, annotate, and understand most plant genomes (Horan et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2023). We propose that a similar approach for evidence-and community-based revision as the one presented here can be utilized for any other insufficiently annotated species, for which genome models of closely related species are available.…”