Submitted on May 1, 2006
Accepted on July 24, 2006
Computational approaches for the prediction of protein function in the mitochondrion
Toni Gabaldon1*
1 Bioinformatics, Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe, Valencia, Spain
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tgabaldon{at}cipf.es.
Understanding a complex biological system such as the mitochondrion requires the identification of the complete repertoire of proteins targeted to the organelle, the characterization of these and, finally, the elucidation of the functional and physical interactions that occur within the mitochondrion. In the last decade, significant developments have contributed to increase our understanding of the mitochondrion and, among these, computational research has played a significant role. Not only general bioinformatics tools have been applied in the context of the mitochondrion but also some computational techniques have been specifically developed to address problems arosen from within the mitochondrial research field. In this review the contribution of bioinformatics to mitochondrial biology is addressed through a survey of current computational methods that can be applied to predict proteins localized to the mitochondrion and to unravel their functional interactions.
