Function annotation of peptides generated from the non-coding regions of D. melanogaster genome

Abstract

De novo emergence of genes is the most fundamental form of genetic diversity that is attracting the attention of the scientific community. Identification of short open reading frames (sORFs) from the non-coding regions of different genomes has been leading this thought recently. The coding potential of these newly identified sORFs have been investigated through experimental and computational approaches in recent studies. In the present work we have tried to make peptides from intergenic sequences of D. melanogaster genome leading to therapeutic applications. Towards this goal of making novel peptides from non-coding genome, we have found strong computational evidence of 145 peptides with conformational stability from the intergenic sequences of D. melanogaster. The structure of these completely unique peptides was predicted using ab initio method. The function annotation of these peptides was carried out using this structural information. The newly generated proteins were categorised as DNA/Protein/ion binding proteins, electron transporters and a very few as enzymes too. Experimental studies can certainly provide validations to these preliminary findings. This work provides further evidence of untapped potential of non-coding genome.

Identification of Pseudo-R genes in Vitis vinifera and characterization of their role as immunomodulators in host-pathogen interactions

“…All the 69 novel AMPs predicted in our study were cationic in nature and were medium sized peptides which makes them promising anti-microbial candidates ( Table S6 ). Novel anti-microbial peptides derived from Ψs have been functionally annotated in Drosophila [16] till now. Eight out of 69 antimicrobial peptides had antifungal potential in them and were analyzed for their respective targets and binding efficiencies ( Table S6 ).…”

“…Plant antimicrobial peptides are a primary component of the barrier defense system against various phytopathogenic infections [15] . Studies involving pseudogene derived antimicrobial peptides were previously conducted in Drosophila melanogaster and Escherichia coli [16] , [17] . Although, the studies involving the artificial expression of pseudogene-based peptides are still in their infancy, but exhibit great potentials of pseudogenes being expressed as novel and functional proteins [18] .…”

Repurposing the dark genome. IV – noncoding proteins

“…(Joshi et al, 2013), functional proteins were envisaged from pseudogenes (Shidhi et al, 2015). Likewise, antimicrobials, anti-Alzheimer and anti-leishmania peptides were predicted from the intergenic sequences of different model organisms (Chakrabarty et al, 2022, Deepthi et al, 2016, Raj et al, 2015.…”