A landmark study published today in Nature by the TransCODE Consortium reveals a hidden layer of the human proteome. Analyzing more than 95,000 mass spectrometry experiments, the team found protein-level evidence for over 1,700 microproteins encoded by non-canonical open reading frames, sequences that were not previously recognized as protein-coding.
Several of these microproteins have measurable roles in cell division, DNA repair and other core processes. Others appear to be unique to cancer cells and are displayed on the cell surface, making them potential targets for immunotherapy. The team also introduced the concept of “peptideins,” a new class of gene products with properties distinct from conventional proteins, to describe a subset of these molecules.
The study was co-led by ORFeus coordinator Sebastiaan van Heesch and involved multiple ORFeus principal investigators and partners. It builds directly on the kind of large-scale, cross-disciplinary collaboration that ORFeus is designed to take even further. All data have been made openly available to the research community.
This is exactly the science that ORFeus exists to accelerate. We could not be prouder to see so many of our consortium members behind this work.