NIH R01 · 2025
Unraveling microprotein biology with an evolutionary-immunological framework
Recent technological advances have revealed the existence of thousands of microproteins (<100 amino acids) missing from genome annotations, but little is known about their function. The physiological relevance of this ‘biological dark matter’ is one of the biggest outstanding mysteries in modern biology. Compared to canonical proteins, microproteins evolve at a strikingly fast pace. They frequently appear de novo and rapidly disappear through disabling mutations, overwhelmingly exhibiting evolutionarily novel sequences found in only one species or lineage. The lack of evolutionary conservation renders homology-based approaches for functional prediction powerless and raises the concern that…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.