Abstract
By looking for a lack of homologues in a reference database of 27 well-annotated proteomes of primates and 52 well-annotated proteomes of other mammals, 170 putative human-specific proteins were identified. Among them, only 2 are known at the protein level and 23 at the transcript level, according to Uniprot. Though 21 of these 25 proteins are found encoded by an open reading frame of a long non-coding RNA, 60% of them are predicted to be at least 90% globular, with a single structural domain. However, there is a near complete lack of structural knowledge about these proteins, with no tridimensional structure presently available in the Protein Databank and a fair prediction for a single of them in the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database. Moreover, the knowledge about the function of these possibly key proteins remains scarce.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
