Burnett School of Biomedical Science, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, United States.
Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, United States.
Brief Bioinform. 2024 May 23;25(4). doi: 10.1093/bib/bbae345.
Small proteins (SPs) are typically characterized as eukaryotic proteins shorter than 100 amino acids and prokaryotic proteins shorter than 50 amino acids. Historically, they were disregarded because of the arbitrary size thresholds to define proteins. However, recent research has revealed the existence of many SPs and their crucial roles. Despite this, the identification of SPs and the elucidation of their functions are still in their infancy. To pave the way for future SP studies, we briefly introduce the limitations and advancements in experimental techniques for SP identification. We then provide an overview of available computational tools for SP identification, their constraints, and their evaluation. Additionally, we highlight existing resources for SP research. This survey aims to initiate further exploration into SPs and encourage the development of more sophisticated computational tools for SP identification in prokaryotes and microbiomes.
小分子蛋白（SPs）通常被定义为真核生物中小于 100 个氨基酸、原核生物中小于 50 个氨基酸的蛋白质。过去，由于定义蛋白质的大小阈值具有随意性，这些小分子蛋白一直被忽视。然而，最近的研究揭示了许多小分子蛋白的存在及其关键作用。尽管如此，小分子蛋白的鉴定及其功能的阐明仍处于起步阶段。为了为未来的小分子蛋白研究铺平道路，我们简要介绍了用于小分子蛋白鉴定的实验技术的局限性和进展。然后，我们提供了用于小分子蛋白鉴定的计算工具的概述，包括它们的局限性和评估。此外，我们还强调了现有的小分子蛋白研究资源。本综述旨在进一步探索小分子蛋白，并鼓励开发更复杂的用于原核生物和微生物组中小分子蛋白鉴定的计算工具。
