In biology and related fields, there is no universal standard terminology. The use of terms may be specific to a species.It may be specific to a research area or even a particular research group. This makes communication and data sharing difficult.
The Gene Ontology project provides an ontology with defined terms that represent the properties of gene products. The ontology covers three domains:
- cellular component, the parts of a cell or its extracellular environment;
- molecular function, the elementary activities of a gene product at the molecular level, such as binding or catalysis;
- biological process, operations or sets of molecular events with a defined beginning and end relevant to the functioning of integrated living entities: cells, tissues, organs and organisms.
Each GO term within the ontology has a term name, which may be a word or phrase, a unique alphanumeric label, a definition with cited sources, and an ontology indicating the domain to which it belongs. Terms may also have synonyms that are classified as exactly equivalent to the term name, broader, narrower, or related; references to equivalent concepts in other databases; and comments on the meaning or use of the term. The GO vocabulary is species-neutral and contains terms that apply to prokaryotes and eukaryotes, unicellular and multicellular organisms.