Scientists have discovered a hidden layer of biology #biology #Science #dna The paper "Expanding the human proteome with micro proteins and peptideins " discovers that parts of DNA were originally ignored actually have code for a molecule called peptideins. These protein like molecules are small and seem to be important for cell function and affect diseases including cancer. This is game changing for human biology and what these molecules do will be discovered in the coming years...

Scientists have just discovered a hidden layer of human biology. A hidden layer of biology that we missed for decades simply because we didn't have the technology to detect it. Well, now we do. It was published just last week in one of the leading scientific journals. And we only discovered it because of a collaboration between some of the world's leading scientists across the globe. Let's explain this incredible discovery. Back in 1990, scientists set out a huge project. They wanted to map the entire DNA sequence of humans. Essentially creating a blueprint of what it means to be human. And scientists could largely separate out DNA into two categories. Coding and non-coding. With coding DNA being read by the cell to ultimately produce proteins. Whilst non-coding DNA doesn't code, it doesn't make proteins. And scientists predicted which parts of DNA were coding or non-coding largely based on computer predictions and our understanding of evolution. But years later, as technology moved on, scientists developed tools to figure out exactly which parts of DNA were coding. And this is where the big discovery comes in. Scientists figured out that large parts of DNA that we originally ignored are actually able to produce molecules. Molecules that we previously couldn't detect because the technology wasn't there. Scientists discovered that DNA can code for a new molecule that they're calling peptidines or microprosines. And scientists have already seen that there are potentially thousands of these peptidines that affect both cell function and a whole host of diseases. They are called peptidines because they're made from amino acids but for much smaller structures than usual proteins. But scientists really don't have a clue what most of these molecules are doing. In the lab, scientists turned off the gene for one of these newly discovered peptidines and it affected cancer cells ability to survive in 85% of cases. And that's just one. There's potentially thousands of these new molecules. What's even weirder about these peptidines is that they seem to have evolved recently and seem to be largely unique to primates. So scientists have discovered a new class of molecule called peptidine. But what on earth do they do?