Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Life Sciences Addition, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94729-3200, USA. keilbeck@fruitfly.org
The Sequence Ontology (SO) is a structured controlled vocabulary for the parts of a genomic annotation. SO provides a common set of terms and definitions that will facilitate the exchange, analysis and management of genomic data. Because SO treats part-whole relationships rigorously, data described with it can become substrates for automated reasoning, and instances of sequence features described by the SO can be subjected to a group of logical operations termed extensional mereology operators.