Gene Ontology: tool for the unification of biology

• Published in: Nature genetics Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 25 - 29
• Main Authors: Botstein, David, Cherry, J. Michael, Ashburner, Michael, Ball, Catherine A, Blake, Judith A, Butler, Heather, Davis, Allan P, Dolinski, Kara, Dwight, Selina S, Eppig, Janan T, Harris, Midori A, Hill, David P, Issel-Tarver, Laurie, Kasarskis, Andrew, Lewis, Suzanna, Matese, John C, Richardson, Joel E, Ringwald, Martin, Rubin, Gerald M, Sherlock, Gavin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Nature Publishing Group US 01.05.2000; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Agriculture; Analysis; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Biological and medical sciences; Biology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Cancer Research; commentary; Consortia; Diverse techniques; Eukaryotes; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene Function; Gene Ontology Consortium; Genes; Genetic aspects; Genetic research; Genomes; Human Genetics; Insects; Molecular and cellular biology; Ontology; Organisms; Proteins; Roles; Vocabularies & taxonomies; Yeast; Molecular evolution; Eucaryote; Gene; Nucleotide sequence; Controlled vocabulary; Genetics; Homology; Biology; Gene expression; Genome; Sequencing
• ISSN: 1061-4036; 1546-1718
• DOI: 10.1038/75556

Genomic sequencing has made it clear that a large fraction of the genes specifying the core biological functions are shared by all eukaryotes. Knowledge of the biological role of such shared proteins in one organism can often be transferred to other organisms. The goal of the Gene Ontology Consortium is to produce a dynamic, controlled vocabulary that can be applied to all eukaryotes even as knowledge of gene and protein roles in cells is accumulating and changing. To this end, three independent ontologies accessible on the World-Wide Web ( http://www.geneontology.org ) are being constructed: biological process, molecular function and cellular component.