João J Rocha, Satish Arcot Jayaram, Tim J Stevens, Nadine Muschalik, Rajen D Shah, Sahar Emran, Cristina Robles, Matthew Freeman, Sean Munro
{"title":"Functional unknomics: Systematic screening of conserved genes of unknown function.","authors":"João J Rocha, Satish Arcot Jayaram, Tim J Stevens, Nadine Muschalik, Rajen D Shah, Sahar Emran, Cristina Robles, Matthew Freeman, Sean Munro","doi":"10.1371/journal.pbio.3002222","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The human genome encodes approximately 20,000 proteins, many still uncharacterised. It has become clear that scientific research tends to focus on well-studied proteins, leading to a concern that poorly understood genes are unjustifiably neglected. To address this, we have developed a publicly available and customisable \"Unknome database\" that ranks proteins based on how little is known about them. We applied RNA interference (RNAi) in Drosophila to 260 unknown genes that are conserved between flies and humans. Knockdown of some genes resulted in loss of viability, and functional screening of the rest revealed hits for fertility, development, locomotion, protein quality control, and resilience to stress. CRISPR/Cas9 gene disruption validated a component of Notch signalling and 2 genes contributing to male fertility. Our work illustrates the importance of poorly understood genes, provides a resource to accelerate future research, and highlights a need to support database curation to ensure that misannotation does not erode our awareness of our own ignorance.</p>","PeriodicalId":20240,"journal":{"name":"PLoS Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10409296/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PLoS Biology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002222","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/8/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The human genome encodes approximately 20,000 proteins, many still uncharacterised. It has become clear that scientific research tends to focus on well-studied proteins, leading to a concern that poorly understood genes are unjustifiably neglected. To address this, we have developed a publicly available and customisable "Unknome database" that ranks proteins based on how little is known about them. We applied RNA interference (RNAi) in Drosophila to 260 unknown genes that are conserved between flies and humans. Knockdown of some genes resulted in loss of viability, and functional screening of the rest revealed hits for fertility, development, locomotion, protein quality control, and resilience to stress. CRISPR/Cas9 gene disruption validated a component of Notch signalling and 2 genes contributing to male fertility. Our work illustrates the importance of poorly understood genes, provides a resource to accelerate future research, and highlights a need to support database curation to ensure that misannotation does not erode our awareness of our own ignorance.
期刊介绍:
PLOS Biology is an open-access, peer-reviewed general biology journal published by PLOS, a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians dedicated to making the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible. The journal publishes new articles online weekly, with issues compiled and published monthly.
ISSN Numbers:
eISSN: 1545-7885
ISSN: 1544-9173