Formalization of taxon-based constraints to detect inconsistencies in annotation and ontology development.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Gene Ontology project supports categorization of gene products according to their location of action, the molecular functions that they carry out, and the processes that they are involved in. Although the ontologies are intentionally developed to be taxon neutral, and to cover all species, there are inherent taxon specificities in some branches. For example, the process 'lactation' is specific to mammals and the location 'mitochondrion' is specific to eukaryotes. The lack of an explicit formalization of these constraints can lead to errors and inconsistencies in automated and manual annotation.

Results

We have formalized the taxonomic constraints implicit in some GO classes, and specified these at various levels in the ontology. We have also developed an infer

SUBMITTER: Deegan nee Clark JI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3098089 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature