Release Notice
Aug 12, 2010
A beta version of the latest release of the PO is now available on our AmiGO Browser ( http://beta.plantontology.org:8080/amigo/go.cgi).
The primary structure of the PO, including one branch for Plant Structure Ontology (PSO) and one branch for Plant Growth and Developmental Stage Ontology (PGDSO), has not changed. The main goal of this round of revisions was to create a framework that could accept new terms from all plants, with the focus on the re-organization of the (PSO) and minor changes (addition of only three new high-level terms) to the (PGDSO).
In the PSO, new top-level terms were added, new definitions were written for many terms (including all top-level terms), and the second an third levels of the ontology were extensively re-organized. An effort was made to insure that widely studied plant structures such as flower, stem, and gamete had working definitions and correct parentage.
Detailed revisions, including the addition of many new terms, were made to the PSO term tuber (PO:0004543) and its is_a and part_of children. This provided a test case for how to build relationships among the parts of a complex structure while at the same time providing much needed terms for annotation of potato genes. Throughout the revision process, the curators worked to incorporate new advances in ontology design and construction. These included the use of logical text and relational definitions and references to external ontologies where appropriate.
Although this release contains only a few new terms that are specific to taxa outside angiosperms, the new structure will enable us to incorporate these terms in future releases.
The POC is seeking feedback on the beta release. Please use the Feedback Link (http://www.plantontology.org/db/feedback/send_feedback?refer_to=/index.html) or contact us at po-discuss@plantontology.org.
For more information about the release, please visit our wikipage with a Summary of Changes (http://wiki.plantontology.org:8080/index.php/Summary_of_changes_to_the_Plant_Ontology)
