APS Abstract of Presentation

Using the universal language of Gene Ontology to annotate gene products involved in the interactions between microbes and their hosts
C. W. COLLMER (8), T. Torto-Alalibo (7), M. Lindeberg (1), M. Chibucos (7), M. Gwinn-Giglio (5), B. Biehl (6), A. Ireland (2), J. Lomax (2), D. Bird (4), A. Collmer (1), R. Dean (4), J. Glasner (6), L. Hannick (3), T. Mitchell (4), N. Perna (6), J. Setubal (7), O. White (5), B. M. Tyler (7)
(1) Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; (2) European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK; (3) J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD, USA; (4) North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; (5) University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; (6) University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; (7) Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA; (8) Wells College, Aurora, NY, USA
Phytopathology 98:S40

Advances in genomics and pathobiology increasingly point to underlying similarities in the way that pathogens in diverse classes interact with plants. The Gene Ontology (GO) provides a controlled vocabulary for describing gene products involved in pathogenesis that universally applies to all pathogens and enables rich annotation and comparison of pathogen genomes based on gene function. The GO vocabulary describes the molecular activities of gene products, their locations in cells, and the biological processes they serve, and it provides codes for the evidence supporting term assignment. Through a multi-institutional collaboration, the Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology consortium (PAMGO) is expanding the work of the global GO Consortium and has so far developed over 500 terms for specific processes in the interactions between microbes (prokaryote and eukaryote) and their hosts (plant and animal) in relationships ranging from mutualism to pathogenesis. GO terms are being used to annotate the genomes of selected plant pathogens, including the bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Dickeya dadantii, and Pseudomonas syringae; the oomycetes Phytophthora sojae and P. ramorum; the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae; and the nematode Meloidogyne hapla. One representative benefit is that GO annotation highlights similarities in the functions of effector proteins delivered into plant cells by bacteria and oomycetes. PAMGO is supported by grants from the NRI/CSREES and the NSF.