A simple example
•If you were searching for new
targets for antibiotics, you might want to find
–all the gene products that are involved in
bacterial protein synthesis, and
–that have significantly different sequences
or structures from those in humans.
•If one database describes
these molecules as being involved in 'translation‘ while another
uses the phrase 'protein synthesis', it will be
difficult for you - and even harder for a computer - to find functionally
equivalent terms.
4
Inconsistent
descriptions of biological function makes systemic
functional analysis virtually impossible
Adopted from
http://www.geneontology.org/