The term open reading frame (ORF) is of central importance to gene finding. Surprisingly, at least three definitions are in use. We discuss several molecular biological and bioinformatics aspects, and we recommend using the definition in which an ORF is bounded by stop codons.

中文翻译：

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再谈开放阅读框架的定义

术语开放阅读框（ORF）对基因发现至关重要。令人惊讶的是，至少使用了三个定义。我们讨论了分子生物学和生物信息学的几个方面，并建议使用ORF以终止密码子为界的定义。