Phenotype ontologies: the bridge between genomics and evolution

Paula M. Mabee, Michael Ashburner, Quentin Cronk, Georgios V. Gkoutos, Melissa Haendel, Erik Segerdell, Chris Mungall, Monte Westerfield

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

114 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding the developmental and genetic underpinnings of particular evolutionary changes has been hindered by inadequate databases of evolutionary anatomy and by the lack of a computational approach to identify underlying candidate genes and regulators. By contrast, model organism studies have been enhanced by ontologies shared among genomic databases. Here, we suggest that evolutionary and genomics databases can be developed to exchange and use information through shared phenotype and anatomy ontologies. This would facilitate computing on evolutionary questions pertaining to the genetic basis of evolutionary change, the genetic and developmental bases of correlated characters and independent evolution, biomedical parallels to evolutionary change, and the ecological and paleontological correlates of particular types of change in genes, gene networks and developmental pathways.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)345-350
Number of pages6
JournalTrends in Ecology and Evolution
Volume22
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2007
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Phenotype ontologies: the bridge between genomics and evolution'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this