goref-0000056.md

authors	id	year	layout
The GO Consortium	GO_REF:0000056	2013	goref

Taxon constraints to detect inconsistencies in annotation and ontology structure.

GO is intended to cover the full range of species, therefore GO terms are defined to be taxon neutral, avoiding reliance on taxon information for full definition of the given process, function, or component. For certain terms, however, there is obvious implicit taxon specificity, such that the term should only be used to categorize gene products from particular species. Taxon specificity of GO terms is captured using relationships such as "only_in_taxon" and "never_in_taxon". All taxon constraints are inherited by sub-types and parts of the GO term they are applied to. Taxon constraints are used to prevent inappropriate annotations from being made by curators as well as to identify pre-existing annotations that violate the taxon constraints. Errors in annotations are automatically detected by looking for inconsistencies between the taxonomic origin of the annotated gene products and the implicit taxon specificity of the GO terms. The inconsistencies are passed on to curators for correction, in some cases the constraints need to be tightened or relaxed or the structure of the ontology needs to be adjusted. The taxon constraints are further described in this publication: Deegan, Dimmer and Mungall. BMC Bionformatics (2010) Formalization of taxon-based constraints to detect inconsistencies in annotaiton and ontology development. (PMID:20973947).