Analysis and prediction of mitochondrial targeting signals

The targeting of mitochondrial precursor proteins from the cytosol to the organelle and the subsequent intramitochondrial sorting depend on specific targeting and sorting information within the precursor sequence. In the case of the cleavable presequences, the characteristics of this signal are well understood and various bioinformatics and experimental tools are available to analyze them. The challenge for the coming years is to achieve a similar level of characterization and prediction ability for the various internal targeting and sorting signals. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.