Gene products possess one or more functions which may play a role in one or more biological processes. We are developing a method to describe these attributes in a rigorous way that will allow researchers to consistently annotate and explore the universe of genomes. The organising principles are molecular function, biological process and cellular component. Molecular function is what something does. It describes only what it can do without specifying where or when this usage actually occurs.
Biological process is a biological objective.
A process is accomplished via one or more ordered assemblies of functions. The collaborating databases are assigning controlled vocabulary terms to gene products based on current knowledge. The Gene Ontology Database will allow both attribution and querying at different levels of granularity. The Gene Ontology Database will provide annotation, definitions, and accession keys for all terms. The co-operation between the three databases will ensure the use of a common ontology and, therefore, facilitate queries across all three databases.