<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>We have recently mapped the Gene Ontology (GO), developed by the Gene Ontology
Consortium, into the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language
System (UMLS). GO has been developed for the purpose of annotating gene products
in genome databases, and the UMLS has been developed as a framework for
integrating large numbers of disparate terminologies, primarily for the purpose of
providing better access to biomedical information sources. The mapping of GO to
UMLS highlighted issues in both terminology systems. After some initial explorations
and discussions between the UMLS and GO teams, the GO was integrated with the
UMLS. Overall, a total of 23% of the GO terms either matched directly (3%) or
linked (20%) to existing UMLS concepts. All GO terms now have a corresponding,
official UMLS concept, and the entire vocabulary is available through the web-based
UMLS Knowledge Source Server. The mapping of the Gene Ontology, with its focus
on structures, processes and functions at the molecular level, to the existing broad
coverage UMLS should contribute to linking the language and practices of clinical
medicine to the language and practices of genomics.</p>
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Comp Funct Genomics. 2004 Jun; 5(4):354-361