The Gene Ontology knowledgebase in 2026
Suzi A Aleksander, James P Balhoff, Seth Carbon, J Michael Cherry, Dustin Ebert, Marc Feuermann, Pascale Gaudet, Nomi L Harris, David P Hill, Patrick Kalita, Raymond Lee, Huaiyu Mi, Sierra Moxon, Christopher J Mungall, Anushya Muruganujan, Tremayne Mushayahama, Paul W Sternberg, Paul D Thomas, Kimberly Van Auken, Edith D Wong, Valerie Wood, Jolene Ramsey, Deborah A Siegele, Rex L Chisholm, Robert Dodson, Petra Fey, Maria Cristina Aspromonte, Maria Victoria Nugnes, Ximena Aixa Castro Naser, Silvio C E Tosatto, Michelle Giglio, Suvarna Nadendla, Giulia Antonazzo, Helen Attrill, Nicholas H Brown, Gil dos Santos, Steven Marygold, Katja Röper, Victor Strelets, Christopher J Tabone, Jim Thurmond, Pinglei Zhou, Rossana Zaru, Ruth C Lovering, Colin Logie, Daqing Chen, Alexandra Naba, Karen Christie, Lori Corbani, Li Ni, Dmitry Sitnikov, Cynthia Smith, James Seager, Laurel Cooper, Justin Elser, Pankaj Jaiswal, Parul Gupta, Sushma Naithani, Pascal Carme, Kim Rutherford, Jeffrey L De Pons, Melinda R Dwinell, G Thomas Hayman, Mary L Kaldunski, Anne E Kwitek, Stanley J F Laulederkind, Marek A Tutaj, Mahima Vedi, Shur-Jen Wang, Peter D’Eustachio, Lucila Aimo, Kristian Axelsen, Alan Bridge, Nevila Hyka-Nouspikel, Anne Morgat, Gene Goldbold, Stacia R Engel, Stuart R Miyasato, Robert S Nash, Gavin Sherlock, Shuai Weng, Erika Bakker, Tanya Z Berardini, Leonore Reiser, Andrea Auchincloss, Ghislaine Argoud-Puy, Marie-Claude Blatter, Emmanuel Boutet, Lionel Breuza, Cristina Casals-Casas, Elisabeth Coudert, Anne Estreicher, Maria Livia Famiglietti, Arnaud Gos, Nadine Gruaz-Gumowski, Chantal Hulo, Florence Jungo, Philippe Le Mercier, Damien Lieberherr, Patrick Masson
Abstract
The Gene Ontology (GO) knowledgebase (https://geneontology.org) is a comprehensive resource describing the functions of genes. The GO knowledgebase is regularly updated and improved. We describe here the major updates that have been made in the past 3 years. The ontology and annotations have been expanded and revised, particularly in several areas of biology: cellular metabolism, multi-organism interactions (e.g. host-pathogen), extracellular matrix proteins, chromatin remodeling (e.g. the "histone code"), and noncoding RNA functions. We have released version 2 of a comprehensive set of integrated, reviewed annotations for human genes, which we call the "functionome." We have also dramatically increased the number of GO-CAM models, with over 1500 models of metabolic and signaling pathways, primarily in human, mouse, budding and fission yeast, and fruit fly. Finally, we discuss our current recommendations and future prospects of AI in the use and development of GO.