Publication: How antisense transcripts can evolve to encode novel proteins

New protein coding genes can emerge de novo, overlapping existing protein coding genes but in the opposite (antisense) orientation. The authors investigated the possibility of such events using mathematical modelling and data analysis, and found that emergence of a protein coding region (ORF) is generally more likely in one frame of overlap (frame 1), than in the other two frames of overlap and in non-overlapping intergenic regions.

The paper was published on July 23. 2024 in Nature Communications 15.