From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
The Gene Ontology, or
GO, is composed of three
related
ontologies covering basic
areas of biological research: the
molecular function of gene
products, their role in multi-step
biological processes, and
their physical structure as
cellular components. Each
ontology is constructed as a
directed acyclic graph.
The GO is continously updated,
and new versions are made
available on a monthly basis. The
GO is also part of a larger
classification effort, the
Open Biomedical Ontologies
(OBO).
History
The Gene Ontology was
originally contructed in 1998 by a
consortium of researchers studying
the
genome of
model organisms such as
Drosophila (fruit fly) and
Saccharomyces (yeast).
Contributions steadily increased
with the availability of genome
annotation throughout the 1990s,
and the GO now contains over
17,000 terms referring to a wide
variety of biological organisms.
There is a significant body of
literature on the development and
use of the GO, and it has become a
standard tool in the
bioinformatics arsenal.
Gene Ontology terms
Each GO term consists of a
unique alphanumerical identifier,
a common name, and a definition.
When a term has multiple meanings
depending on species, the GO uses
a “sensu” tag to differentiate
among them. Terms are classified
into only one of the three
ontologies.
New terms and annotations are
suggested by members of the
research community. Once
submitted, they are reviewed by
members of the GO consortium to
determine their applicability.
If a term is no longer useful,
it is deprecated, or marked as
“obsolete”. This can happen when a
term is deemed inappropriate,
perhaps because it lacks
sufficient supporting annotation.
