GOSim – an R-package for computation of information theoretic GO similarities between terms and gene products
2007

GOSim: An R-package for Gene Ontology Similarities

Sample size: 1107 publication Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Fröhlich Holger, Speer Nora, Poustka Annemarie, Beißbarth Tim

Primary Institution: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that genes with expression patterns similar to known genes are involved in similar biological processes.

Conclusion

GOSim provides a flexible and powerful tool to combine biological knowledge with experimental data.

Supporting Evidence

  • GOSim allows the calculation of functional similarity of genes based on GO terms.
  • It extends existing tools by providing additional functional similarity measures.
  • GOSim can cluster genes according to their biological function.
  • It evaluates the homogeneity of gene groupings with respect to GO annotations.

Takeaway

GOSim helps scientists understand how similar genes are based on their functions, making it easier to study them.

Methodology

GOSim calculates functional similarities of genes based on their GO annotations using various information theoretic similarity measures.

Limitations

Functional clusters may contain false positives, which should be interpreted with care.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1186/1471-2105-8-166

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