5 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
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LncRNAs very rarely have open reading frames. They do have introns and are weakly spliced,[1] but ORFs pop up very rarely (Possibly a relic of evolving to overlap protein-coding genes).[2]
1: http://m.genome.cshlp.org/content/22/9/1616.short
2: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42775
However, in rare cases they are able to actually code for functional micropeptides.
Comment by Xilon-Diguus at 21/09/2021 at 13:52 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It is important to remember that even though there are likely relics. I had never actually heard of the micropeptide thing, so I can't actually comment on that.
That being said, small ORFs that trigger NMD can be functional mechanisms of transcriptional control using alternative transcriptional start sites.