Abstract
Predicting protein function from protein sequence, structure,
interaction, and other relevant information is important for generating
hypotheses for biological experiments and studying biological systems,
and therefore has been a major challenge in protein bioinformatics.
Numerous computational methods had been developed to advance protein
function prediction gradually in the last two decades. Particularly, in
the recent years, leveraging the revolutionary advances in artificial
intelligence (AI), more and more deep learning methods have been
developed to improve protein function prediction at a faster pace. Here,
we provide an in-depth review of the recent developments of deep
learning methods for protein function prediction. We summarize the
significant advances in the field, identify several remaining major
challenges to be tackled, and suggest some potential directions to
explore. The data sources and evaluation metrics widely used in protein
function prediction are also discussed to assist the machine learning,
AI, and bioinformatics communities to develop more cutting-edge methods
to advance protein function prediction.