Overlapping genes produce proteins with unusual sequence properties and offer insight into de novo protein creation.

ABSTRACT: It is widely assumed that new proteins are created by duplication, fusion, or fission of existing coding sequences. Another mechanism of protein birth is provided by overlapping genes. They are created de novo by mutations within a coding sequence that lead to the expression of a novel protein in another reading frame, a process called "overprinting." To investigate this mechanism, we have analyzed the sequences of the protein products of manually curated overlapping genes from 43 genera of unspliced RNA viruses infecting eukaryotes. Overlapping proteins have a sequence composition globally biased toward disorder-promoting amino acids and are predicted to contain significantly more structural disorder than nonoverlapping proteins. By analyzing the phylogenetic distribution of overlapping p

SUBMITTER: Rancurel C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2753099 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature