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<small>October 13th, 2010</small><br>
<pre>The latest release of the Plant Ontology is now available on our
Ontology Browser at <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plantontology.org">http://www.plantontology.org</a>.
The main goal of this revision was to create an ontological framework
that will encompass all plants, unlike previous versions that covered
only flowering plants. The revisions include 83 new terms, revised
definitions and modified child-parent relationships.
The upper-level parent terms of the Plant Structure Ontology (PSO) have
been extensively re-organized, with ‘in vitro cultured cell, tissue and
organ’, ‘organ’ and ‘tissue’ all being renamed. Two new upper-level
parent terms have been added to the PSO, ‘collective plant structure’
and ‘cardinal organ part’.
A major change that users will notice is the deletion of two top-level
plant structure terms: ‘sporophyte’ and ‘gametophyte’, which are now
narrow synonyms of whole plant. As an alternative, two new terms
‘sporophytic phase’ and ‘gametophytic phase’ were added to the Plant
Growth and Development Stage Ontology (PGDSO). These terms describe the
alternating phases of the life cycle of all plants, as well the
associated plant structures. These terms will be used to describe
structures that occur only during a specific growth phase.
The second and third level child terms in the PSO ontology also received
extensive revision. For example, we redefined the term ‘tuber’
(PO:0004543) and added many new children to it and its parts. This
provided a test case for how to build relationships among the parts of a
complex structure while at the same time providing terms that are needed
to annotate potato genes.
Throughout the revision process, the curators worked to incorporate
advances in ontology design and construction. These included the use of
logical text and relational definitions and references to external
ontologies where appropriate.
An effort was made to insure that widely studied plant structures such
as flower, stem and gamete had working definitions and the correct
parentage. Although this release contains only a few new terms that are
specific to taxa outside angiosperms, we expect that the new structure
will enable incorporation of terms originating from all plant species,
including non-angiosperms in future releases.
For more information about the release and details on the changes made
to the ontology, please visit
(<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.plantontology.org:8080/index.php/Summary_of_changes_to_the_Plant_Ontology">http://wiki.plantontology.org:8080/index.php/Summary_of_changes_to_the_Plant_Ontology</a>).
Your feedback on the release is welcome.
Please use the Feedback Link:
(<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plantontology.org/db/feedback/send_feedback">http://www.plantontology.org/db/feedback/send_feedback</a>?) or contact us
at <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:po-discuss@plantontology.org">po-discuss@plantontology.org</a>.
Thank you in advance for your interest and feedback.
Sincerely, the Plant Ontology Consortium
**********************************************************
The Plant Ontology Consortium
Pankaj Jaiswal, Laurel Cooper, Justin Elser, Justin Preece; Department
of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Dennis Wm. Stevenson, Ramona Walls; The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY
Maria A. Gandolfo; Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY
Web: <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.plantontology.org">www.plantontology.org</a>
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:po-discuss@plantontology.org">po-discuss@plantontology.org</a>
Phone: 541-737-5272
Fax: 541-737-3573
***********************************************************
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