Problem:
I have noticed in a particular genome sequence of a prokaryote that various regions in a sequence share similarity which is high(>80%) with known proteins. However, the start is not a methionine.
Required:
Question 1: Is this a dysfunctional 'protein' sequence?
Question 2: Are there alternative codons which translate those regions without a Met or fMet for that matter?
Technically, do all annotations of proteins have to start with a methionine?