How big is the #unknome? In other words, how many of the 20,000 or so genes in the human genome are unknown (in function)? Is there a gradient of unknown-ness? A new paper in @PLOSBiology by Rocha and colleagues introduces us to the unknome and then adds some good stuff, which is the least the authors can do after telling us how little we know about human gene function.
The word '#genome' was born in the 1920s when someone blended 'gene' with 'chromosome'. (The -some in 'chromosome' is from a root that means 'body' as in 'somatic' or 'psychosomatic'.)
Then science started adding -omes. Proteome, transcriptome, phenome, even spliceome. But the best by far is the #unknome: the set of all genes of unknown function.
New paper in @PLOSBiology about the unknome does a screen for basic function of these "mystery proteins"