Arabidopsis Phenotype Representation Using Ontologies

Ontologies provide a way to organize data for searching, comparison and analysis.  Most Arabidopsis phenotype datasets currently exist as free text or in the form of project-specific controlled vocabularies.  We have launched a project to express a large set of Arabidopsis mutant phenotypes in the form of entity-quality statements using a set of well-established ontologies to enable cross-experiment and cross-species comparisons and analyses. Using this method we have been able to represent a wide range of phenotypes including developmental stage-specific, molecular and complex morphological phenotypes.  A core set of mutant phenotypes in the form of annotations using shared ontologies and consistent annotation methds is under development for Arabidopsis and several other plant species.  This dataset could serve as the nucleus of a phenome module for IAIC.