Carly Houghton

Environmental stress and phenotypic tradeoff modulate the adaptive potential of novel coding sequences for de novo gene birth

Novel protein-coding genes can emerge de novo from ancestrally noncoding sequences and promote adaptation to environmental stresses. Previous work proposes that pervasive translation of lowly expressed open reading frames (ORFs) in noncoding regions creates a rich reservoir of “proto-genes,” of which subsequent acquisi...