Application of Ontologies to Plant Gene Function and Phenotype Data

Ontologies are a valuable tool for data analysis across unified datasets drawn from different experiments, obtained by different methods and even derived from different species. The Gene Ontology, a single ontology with three aspects, has become the standard for capture of gene function and subcellular localization data. The value of ontologies for annotation of gene function has been demonstrated across a range of animal and plant species, but development of methods and approaches for phenotype annotation using ontologies is still at an early stage.  A method for representation of plant phenotypes using a set of taxonomically broad ontologies will be described.  This approach holds promise for comparison and analysis of phenotype data across a range of plant species.