dORF
The assumption that mRNAs in higher organisms translate a single ORF has undergone a dramatic revision in recent years. Thousands of small translated ORFs have been identified within previously assigned UTRs and long non-coding RNAs. Translation of small ORFs in the 5’UTR, known as upstream-ORFs, has been widely studied and generally tend to attenuate translation of the associated main ORF. We have discovered translated small ORFs in the 3’UTR, which we refer to as downstream open reading frames (dORFs). Unexpectedly, we found that these dORFs strongly enhance translation of the main coding ORF. We are interesting in dissect the dORF molecular mechanism and biological role in development and relation with human diseases.
