Hi Zachary, Xinzhu and Chase.
First of all I wanted to thank you for bringing up this important point. While it is unlikely that all of these genes are functional/expressed, I agree that there is both computational and experimental evidence that some do have a function.
Which is why we (Virus Pathogen Resource) decided to add our own annotation to the SARS-CoV-2 genomes in our database, in addition to that provided by GenBank. Our annotation program (VIGOR4) also annotates ORF3c , ORF3d , ORF3b, ORF9b and ORF9c. See image below.
We have not added ORF2b as we did not feel there was enough evidence (at the time) to support it, but we can revisit that if there is user demand.
You can find VIGOR4 annotated proteins at
https://www.viprbrc.org/brc/home.spg?decorator=corona_ncov
We are still a little behind NCBI as data keeps growing exponentially, but should be caught up by the end of the month. Obviously we can only annotate publicly available genomes, but if anyone would like to annotate their own, they can either download our annotation program here or use the web interface here.
Any and all feedback is welcome!
