Connecting annotations: LEGO Models

The Gene Ontology Consortium is moving towards a more expressive way of describing the function of gene products that allows annotations to be connected together to give a complete function of what each gene does in the context of a larger biological process. The new model is called LEGO, for "Logical Extension of the Gene Ontology".

Background

For example, with the current datamodel and Gene Association Files, it's possible to make two statements:

• TEM1 enables GTPase activity
• BFA1 enables GTPase inhibitor activity

However, this misses a crucial part of the biology: that it's BFA1's activity that inhibits the GTPase activity of TEM1. In the standard GO annotation model, these statements are disconnected.

Approach

In our new model, these are connected together, as seen in the following screenshot from our new curation tool, Noctua:

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Currently Noctua is in beta testing, and we will be acquiring a large body of connected GO annotations over the course of 2016.

Finding out more

To find out more, please visit the Noctua Website