by Playfuls Staff |
28th February 2007
A U.S.-led international group of scientists has expanded a lingua franca used to describe the activities of [more] genes in living organisms.
The expansion is part of the unified language called Gene Ontology, which provides terms that scientists can use to describe the complex events that occur when a pathogenic or beneficial microbe encounters its host.
The initiative is part of the Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology project, a recently-established interest group of the worldwide Gene Ontology Consortium, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Professor Brett Tyler of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, located at Virginia Tech, said, "By providing a precise vocabulary for the functions of these genes, scientists can compare among microbes the many processes that make up the interplay between a microbe and its host."
The PAMGO consortium is a collaboration of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Cornell University, North Carolina State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Institute of Genomic Research and Wells College.
© 2007 UPI
