Genes-within-genes: another level of regulation
A major focus of our research is identifying and characterizing genes that were previously missed by annotation, particularly those encoding small base pairing RNAs and small proteins of less than 50 amino acids. Although they were overlooked, small RNAs and small proteins have important regulatory roles. Initially, we focused our searches on intergenic regions, but it is now becoming clear that these regulatory molecules also can be encoded in intragenic regions within other coding sequences. I will discuss the roles of example genes-within-genes as well as the implications for interpreting mutations and gene evolution.