Biological and Medical Ontologies: GO and GOA

The Gene Ontology (GO) is the most developed and relevant biomolecular ontology available. In a species-independent manner, it defines the functional categories, i.e., the biological concepts represented by the terms of its controlled vocabulary, to which the genes or gene products related to some biological process, molecular function, or cellular component belong. Using the functional classification of genes or gene products in GO categories provided by several databases (e.g., Entrez Gene and Uniprot), it is possible to perform semantic evaluations on a given gene or protein list, such as those produced by high-throughput experiments, which may foster new biological discoveries.