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The Plant Structure Ontology, a Unified Vocabulary of Anatomy and Morphology of a Flowering Plant

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Title The Plant Structure Ontology, a Unified Vocabulary of Anatomy and Morphology of a Flowering Plant
Names Ilic, Katica (creator)
Kellogg, Elizabeth A. (creator)
Jaiswal, Pankaj (creator)
et al. (creator)
Date Issued 2007-02 (iso8601)
Note This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the American Society of Plant Biologists and can be found at: http://www.plantphysiol.org/.
Abstract Formal description of plant phenotypes and standardized annotation of gene expression and protein localization data require
uniform terminology that accurately describes plant anatomy and morphology. This facilitates cross species comparative
studies and quantitative comparison of phenotypes and expression patterns. A major drawback is variable terminology that is
used to describe plant anatomy and morphology in publications and genomic databases for different species. The same terms
are sometimes applied to different plant structures in different taxonomic groups. Conversely, similar structures are named by
their species-specific terms. To address this problem, we created the Plant Structure Ontology (PSO), the first generic
ontological representation of anatomy and morphology of a flowering plant. The PSO is intended for a broad plant research
community, including bench scientists, curators in genomic databases, and bioinformaticians. The initial releases of the PSO
integrated existing ontologies for Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), maize (Zea mays), and rice (Oryza sativa); more recent
versions of the ontology encompass terms relevant to Fabaceae, Solanaceae, additional cereal crops, and poplar (Populus spp.).
Databases such as The Arabidopsis Information Resource, Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre, Gramene, MaizeGDB, and
SOL Genomics Network are using the PSO to describe expression patterns of genes and phenotypes of mutants and natural
variants and are regularly contributing new annotations to the Plant Ontology database. The PSO is also used in specialized
public databases, such as BRENDA, GENEVESTIGATOR, NASCArrays, and others. Over 10,000 gene annotations and phenotype
descriptions from participating databases can be queried and retrieved using the Plant Ontology browser. The PSO, as well
as contributed gene associations, can be obtained at www.plantontology.org.
Genre Article
Identifier Ilic, K., Kellogg, E. A., Jaiswal, P., Zapata, F., Stevens, P. F., Vincent, L. P., ... & Rhee, S. Y. (2007). The plant structure ontology, a unified vocabulary of anatomy and morphology of a flowering plant. Plant Physiology, 143(2), 587-599. doi:10.​1104/​pp.​106.​092825

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