Micropeptides as a new class of bio-active peptides in higher eukaryotes.

Micropeptides are a type of non-classical bio-active peptides, translated from short open reading frames (sORFs; <100 amino acids). Recently, such peptides were discovered in several eukaryotic organisms and more interestingly the biological function of one of them, the tarsal-less gene micropeptide, was revealed in Drosophila melanogaster. The objective is to discover new micropeptides in Drosophila melanogaster and translate this search strategy to mouse embryonic samples. This strategy combines both wet-lab (RNA-seq, ribosome profiling, and SRM mass spectrometry) and theoretical (in silico prediction) experiments.