Gene Ontology Documentation

Section contents

Frequently Asked Questions: Answers to frequently asked Gene Ontology questions
An Introduction to the Gene Ontology: A description of the aims of the Gene Ontology Consortium and an explanation of how the ontologies work.
Meeting minutes: minutes from all GO meetings

Ontology Structure: information about the structure of GO terms and the ontology.
Ontology Relations: documentation on the inter-term relations used in GO
Component Ontology: Rules governing content and stylistic aspects of GO terms in the cellular component ontology.
Molecular Function Ontology: Rules governing content and stylistic aspects of GO terms, standard definitions and term relationships in the molecular function ontology.
Biological Process Ontology: Rules governing content and stylistic aspects of GO terms, standard definitions and term relationships in the biological process ontology.
Species-Specific Terms: How the Gene Ontology deals with words or phrases where the meaning varies depending on the organism.
Ontology Content topics: documentation on specific areas of the ontology:
GO Slim Guide: information about GO slims, cut-down versions of the ontologies useful for providing an overview of GO
OBO 1.2 File Format Guide: the ontology file format used and recommended by the GO Consortium

Annotation Guide: An introduction to annotation and the rules and SOPs used for annotating gene products to GO terms.
Evidence Code Guide: Explanation of the codes that are used to indicate the nature of the evidence that supports a particular annotation.
Annotation Conventions: guidelines which apply to all annotation methods and are particularly useful for manual literature-based annotation
Annotation Standard Operating Procedures: standard operating procedures used by members of the GO Consortium during the process of annotation.
Database groups responsible for collecting and submitting annotations for one or more species
GO annotation reference collection
GO annotation ("gene association") file format and QC checks
GAF 2.0 annotation file format
GAF 1.0 annotation file format (deprecated)

GO Database documentation: information about the GO database, including the database schema, accessing or downloading the database, and tips on usage
GO database schema: autogenerated schema documentation
GO database schema with views: autogenerated schema documentation, including database views
Database abbreviations used in the GO database