Dark proteins rebranded as peptideins to map hidden biology
Thousands of so-called dark proteins in the human genome have been reclassified as peptideins and added to major databases, but only 15 of 7,264 suspected sequences have robust experimental support; peptideins are short, often lack evolutionary relatives, and may be cellular by-products with unclear functions, though some are linked to diseases like childhood cancers. The effort aims to spur research into their roles and significance in biology.