Introduction to Protein Function Annotation: The Next Frontier in Molecular Biology (Virtual Issue)

Abstract

Protein folding has been called the "major unsolved challenge" in understanding proteins. But, one could argue that the real challenge involves understanding, in molecular detail, what those proteins actually do--their detailed molecular function. In 2006, Protein Science published the results from the first Automated Function Prediction meeting, held in Detroit, MI, in 2005. Since then, protein function prediction has become a field in its own right, with researchers trying to make sense of the masses of proteins of unknown function, whose sequences and structures are determined by today's high-throughput techniques. This virtual issue of Protein Science highlights some of the important articles published at that first AFP meeting, as well as more recently published articles in this relatively young, but exciting, area of protein science.