molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a branch of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the st ...

, an ORFeome refers to the complete set of

open reading frames In molecular biology, reading frames are defined as spans of DNA sequence between the start and stop codons. Usually, this is considered within a studied region of a prokaryotic DNA sequence, where only one of the six possible reading frames wil ...

(ORFs) in a

genome A genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as ...

. The term may also be used to describe a set of

cloned Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

ORFs. ORFs correspond to the protein coding sequences (CDS) of

gene In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

s. ORFs can be found in genome sequences by computer programs such as GENSCAN and then amplified by PCR. While this is relatively trivial in

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

the problem is non-trivial in

eukaryotic The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms ...

s because of the presence of

intron An intron is any nucleotide sequence within a gene that is not expressed or operative in the final RNA product. The word ''intron'' is derived from the term ''intragenic region'', i.e., a region inside a gene."The notion of the cistron .e., gen ...

s and

exon An exon is any part of a gene that will form a part of the final mature RNA produced by that gene after introns have been removed by RNA splicing. The term ''exon'' refers to both the DNA sequence within a gene and to the corresponding sequence ...

s as well as splice variants.

Use in research

The usage of complete ORFeomes reflects a new trend in biology that can be succinctly summarized as

omics Omics is the collective characterization and quantification of entire sets of biological molecules and the investigation of how they translate into the structure, function, and dynamics of an organism or group of organisms. The branches of scien ...

. ORFeomes are used for the study of protein-protein interactions,

protein microarray A protein microarray (or protein chip) is a high-throughput method used to track the interactions and activities of proteins, and to determine their function, and determining function on a large scale. Its main advantage lies in the fact that larg ...

s, the study of antigens, and other fields of study.

Cloned ORFeomes

Complete ORF sets have been cloned for a number of organisms including '' Brucella melitensis'', ''

Chlamydia pneumoniae Chlamydia, or more specifically a chlamydia infection, is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Chlamydia trachomatis''. Most people who are infected have no symptoms. When symptoms do appear, they may occur only several w ...

'', ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Escherichia'' that is commonly fo ...

'', ''

Neisseria gonorrhoeae ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae'', also known as ''gonococcus'' (singular) or ''gonococci'' (plural), is a species of Gram-negative diplococci bacteria first isolated by Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser, Albert Neisser in 1879. An obligate human pathog ...

'', ''

Pseudomonas aeruginosa ''Pseudomonas aeruginosa'' is a common Bacterial capsule, encapsulated, Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-negative, Aerobic organism, aerobic–facultative anaerobe, facultatively anaerobic, Bacillus (shape), rod-shaped bacteria, bacterium that can c ...

'', ''Schizosaccharomyces pombe'', ''

Staphylococcus aureus ''Staphylococcus aureus'' is a Gram-positive spherically shaped bacterium, a member of the Bacillota, and is a usual member of the microbiota of the body, frequently found in the upper respiratory tract and on the skin. It is often posi ...

'' and human herpesviruses A partial human ORFeome has also been produced.http://horfdb.dfci.harvard.edu/ Human ORFeome 2011 Release

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orfeome Molecular genetics Genomics