Gene ontology

Gene ontology

The Gene Ontology (GO) is a major bioinformatics initiative to unify the representation of gene and gene product attributes across all species. The GO project provides a controlled vocabulary of terms for describing gene product characteristics and gene product annotation data. The GO covers three domains:

• Cellular component: The parts of a cell or its extracellular environment.
• Molecular function: The elemental activities of a gene product at the molecular level, such as binding or catalysis.
• Biological process: Operations or sets of molecular events with a defined beginning and end, pertinent to the functioning of integrated living units: cells, tissues, organs, and organisms.

History

The Gene Ontology project was initiated in 1998 by a consortium of researchers studying the genomes of three model organisms: Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), Mus musculus (mouse), and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast). The project aimed to address the need for consistent descriptions of gene products across databases.

Structure

The GO is structured as a directed acyclic graph, where each term has defined relationships to one or more other terms in the ontology. The relationships can be of different types, such as "is a" (a subclass relationship) or "part of" (a part-whole relationship).

Applications

Gene Ontology is widely used in the field of bioinformatics and computational biology for annotating genes and gene products, facilitating the understanding of their roles in various biological contexts. It is also used in functional genomics research, proteomics, and systems biology.

GO Annotations

Annotations in the GO database are statements about the function, process, or component of a gene product, supported by evidence. These annotations are created by curators who review the scientific literature and other sources of information.

Tools and Resources

Several tools and resources are available for working with GO data, including:

• AmiGO: A web-based application for searching and browsing the Gene Ontology database.
• GO Slim: A cut-down version of the GO, containing a subset of the terms in the whole GO, useful for giving a broad overview of the ontology content without the detail of the specific fine-grained terms.

Related Pages

• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology
• Functional genomics
• Proteomics
• Systems biology
• Drosophila melanogaster
• Mus musculus
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae

See Also

• Ontology (information science)
• Controlled vocabulary
• Directed acyclic graph