Uberon, an integrative multi-species anatomy ontology

Genome Biol. 2012 Jan 31;13(1):R5. doi: 10.1186/gb-2012-13-1-r5.

Abstract

We present Uberon, an integrated cross-species ontology consisting of over 6,500 classes representing a variety of anatomical entities, organized according to traditional anatomical classification criteria. The ontology represents structures in a species-neutral way and includes extensive associations to existing species-centric anatomical ontologies, allowing integration of model organism and human data. Uberon provides a necessary bridge between anatomical structures in different taxa for cross-species inference. It uses novel methods for representing taxonomic variation, and has proved to be essential for translational phenotype analyses. Uberon is available at http://uberon.org.

Publication types

  • Research Support, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Anatomy, Comparative*
  • Classification
  • Computational Biology
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Humans
  • Phenotype
  • Software*
  • Species Specificity