Ontologies

These terms describe a component of a cell that is part of a larger object, such as an anatomical structure (e.g. rough endoplasmic reticulum or nucleus) or a gene product group (e.g. ribosome, proteasome or a protein dimer).

A biological process term describes a series of events accomplished by one or more organized assemblies of molecular functions. Examples of broad biological process terms are "cellular physiological process" or "signal transduction". Examples of more specific terms are "pyrimidine metabolic process" or "alpha-glucoside transport". The general rule to assist in distinguishing between a biological process and a molecular function is that a process must have more than one distinct steps. A biological process Is Not equivalent To a pathway. At present, the GO does Not Try To represent the dynamics Or dependencies that would be required To fully describe a pathway.

Molecular function terms describes activities that occur at the molecular level, such as "catalytic activity" or "binding activity". GO molecular function terms represent activities rather than the entities (molecules or complexes) that perform the actions, and do not specify where, when, or in what context the action takes place. Molecular functions generally correspond to activities that can be performed by individual gene products, but some activities are performed by assembled complexes of gene products. Examples of broad functional terms are "catalytic activity" and "transporter activity"; examples of narrower functional terms are "adenylate cyclase activity" or "Toll receptor binding". It Is easy To confuse a gene product name With its molecular Function; For that reason GO molecular functions are often appended With the word "activity".