An anatomy ontology to represent biological knowledge in Dictyostelium discoideum.
BACKGROUND
Dictyostelium discoideum is a model system for studying many important physiological processes including chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and signal transduction. The recent sequencing of the genome has revealed the presence of over 12,500 protein-coding genes. The model organism database dictyBase hosts the genome sequence as well as a large amount of manually curated information.


RESULTS
We present here an anatomy ontology for Dictyostelium based upon the life cycle of the organism.


CONCLUSIONS
Anatomy ontologies are necessary to annotate species-specific events such as phenotypes, and the Dictyostelium anatomy ontology provides an essential tool for curation of the Dictyostelium genome.
Gaudet
Pascale
P
dictyBase, Northwestern University, Center for Genetic Medicine, 676 N, St, Clair, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. pgaudet@northwestern.edu
Williams
Jeffery G
JG
Fey
Petra
P
Chisholm
Rex L
RL
D000818:Animals; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics; D018503:Genome, Protozoan / Q000235:genetics*; D008018:Life Cycle Stages / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D010641:Phenotype