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Gene Ontology: Pitfalls, Biases, Remedies

Gaudet, P; Dessimoz, C; (2016) Gene Ontology: Pitfalls, Biases, Remedies. In: Dessimoz, C and Škunca, N, (eds.) The Gene Ontology Handbook. (pp. 189-205). Humana Press: New York, NY. Green open access

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Abstract

The Gene Ontology (GO) is a formidable resource but there are several considerations about it that are essential to understand the data and interpret it correctly. The GO is sufficiently simple that it can be used without deep understanding of its structure or how it is developed, which is both a strength and a weakness. In this chapter, we discuss some common misinterpretations of the ontology and the annotations. A better understanding of the pitfalls and the biases in the GO should help users make the most of this very rich resource. We also review some of the misconceptions and misleading assumptions commonly made about GO, including the effect of data incompleteness, the importance of annotation qualifiers, and the transitivity or lack thereof associated with different ontology relations. We also discuss several biases that can confound aggregate analyses such as gene enrichment analyses. For each of these pitfalls and biases, we suggest remedies and best practices.

Type: Book chapter
Title: Gene Ontology: Pitfalls, Biases, Remedies
ISBN-13: 978-1-4939-3741-7
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-3743-1_14
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3743-1_14
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a link is provided to the Creative Commons license and any changes made are indicated. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material.
Keywords: q-bio.GN, q-bio.GN
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1476111
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