Community-based gene structure annotation.

Uncertainty and inconsistency of gene structure annotation remain limitations on research in the genome era, frustrating both biologists and bioinformaticians, who have to sort out annotation errors for their genes of interest or to generate trustworthy datasets for algorithmic development. It is unrealistic to hope for better software solutions in the near future that would solve all the problems. The issue is all the more urgent with more species being sequenced and analyzed by comparative genomics - erroneous annotations could easily propagate, whereas correct annotations in one species will greatly facilitate annotation of novel genomes. We propose a dynamic, economically feasible solution to the annotation predicament: broad-based, web-technology-enabled community annotation, a prototype of which is now in use for Arabidopsis.