New microproteins: Vakirlis and his colleagues also showed that many of the microproteins they detected would have been invisible to more traditional analytical methods. This highlighted the fact that their own methods are likely still far from exhaustive, and that many more de novo microproteins could still be awaiting discovery.
If so, these molecules may well be the early stages of becoming proper genes, which could one day be encoded into the human genome and determine the evolutionary future of our species. In their upcoming research, Vakirlis’ team will aim to detect these more elusive sequences by refining their techniques further, and studying larger datasets of human microproteins.