Conserved Upstream Open Reading Frames in Higher Plants
Author Information
Author(s): Michael K Tran, Carolyn J Schultz, Ute Baumann
Primary Institution: Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics
Hypothesis
It is unclear how prevalent conserved uORFs are in closely related plants.
Conclusion
This research identified new genes that may be controlled at the level of translation by conserved uORFs.
Supporting Evidence
- Conserved uORFs are rare in cereal transcriptomes, with less than 150 loci identified.
- The median amino acid sequence similarity of conserved uORFs is 50%.
- The study developed a bioinformatics pipeline called uORFSCAN for identifying conserved uORFs.
Takeaway
The study found that certain short sequences in plants can help control how genes are turned on or off, but these sequences are quite rare.
Methodology
A homology-based approach was used to identify conserved uORFs in five cereals through a comparative R-nomics program called uORFSCAN.
Potential Biases
Potential false positives due to incomplete data and misassignment of orthologues.
Limitations
The study relied on assembled EST data, which may contain inaccuracies and incomplete sequences.
Participant Demographics
The study focused on five cereal crops: rice, wheat, barley, maize, and sorghum.
Statistical Information
P-Value
<0.05
Statistical Significance
p<0.05
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Want to read the original?
Access the complete publication on the publisher's website