Regulatory genome annotation

Large-scale annotation efforts over the past two decades have identified regulatory regions and networks through functional genomics and evolutionary analyses. The challenge now will be to incorporate the many ‘heterogeneities’ of gene regulation — across cell types, developmental stages and individuals — into regulatory annotation based on new experimental and computational approaches. After more than two decades of large-scale efforts to annotate the regulatory genome, Sushant Kumar and Mark Gerstein forecast how new technologies and experimental approaches will pave the way in mapping regulatory elements across cell types, developmental stages and genetically diverse individuals.