From The Scientist:
In 2002, a group of plant researchers studying legumes at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, discovered that a 679-nucleotide RNA believed to function in a noncoding capacity was in fact a protein-coding messenger RNA (mRNA).1 It had been classified as a long (or large) noncoding RNA (lncRNA) by virtue of being more than 200 nucleotides in length. The RNA, transcribed from a gene called early nodulin 40 (ENOD40), contained short open reading frames (ORFs)—putative protein-coding sequences bookended by start and stop codons—but the ORFs were so short that they had previously been overlooked. When the Cologne collaborators examined the RNA more closely, however, they found that two of the ORFs did indeed encode tiny peptides: one of 12 and one of 24 amino acids. Sampling the legumes confirmed that these micropeptides were made in the plant, where they interacted with a sucrose-synthesizing enzyme.
…
With more and more overlooked peptides now being revealed, the big question is how many are left to be discovered. “Were there going to be dozens of [micropeptides]? Were there going to be hundreds, like there are hundreds of microRNAs?” says Ingolia. “We just didn’t know.”
Olson suspects the number is quite large. The fact that “myoregulin went below the radar screen for all these years . . . really told us that there’s likely to be a gold mine of undiscovered micropeptides out there,” he says. “So we are aggressively mining that right now.” More.
See also: Junk DNA back “with a vengeance” Mad as hell at being classified as junk.
and
Junk DNA: A successor to Piltdown Man?
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