Network approaches to genome annotation and the challenge of Anopheles gambiae

The rapid advancement of current sequencing projects has provided significant challenges for the swift and accurate processing, integration and analysis of biological data. Such challenges will only become greater as a new round of organisms, both well known and obscure, await sequencing and further study. While perhaps less well studied at the molecular level than Drosophila melanogaster, the recently sequenced mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, provides an example of what will be faced by many of these awaiting projects. This review presents a brief overview of some of the challenges associated with these future genome projects (including Anopheles) as well as a description of recent computational approaches that utilize genome context for the prediction of gene and/or protein function. Such approaches show promise not only for the study of Anopheles, but also in the study of biological processes in general.