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.
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Acknowledgements
We thank K. Fasman and M. Rebhan for useful discussions, and Astra Zeneca for financial support. SGD is supported by a P41, National Resources, grant from National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) grant HG01315; MGD by a P41 from NHGRI grant HG00330; GXD by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant HD33745; and FlyBase by a P41 from NHGRI grant HG00739 and the Medical Research Council, London.
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FlyBase (http://www.flybase.bio.indiana.edu).
Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (http://fruitfly.bdgp.berkeley.edu).
Saccharomyces Genome Database (http://genome-www.stanford.edu).
Mouse Genome Database and Gene Expression Database (http://www.informatics.jax.org).
*The Gene Ontology Consortium
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Ashburner, M., Ball, C., Blake, J. et al. Gene Ontology: tool for the unification of biology. Nat Genet 25, 25–29 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/75556
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/75556
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