| Ontology (with a capital O) is the philosophical study of the nature of existence that was derived to define the relationships of entities that can be said to exist in nature. The concept of an ontology was later adopted by the biological sciences to formally represent knowledge within a biological domain in order to standardize the annotation of biological data, and further, enable more efficient and easier data collection, sharing, and reuse across biological and model organism databases. The Protein Ontology (PRO) is a specific biological ontology developed to represent the relationships between proteins and protein complexes. This thesis presents a revised PRO framework, modelled around Arabidopsis thaliana and associated SCF ubiquitin ligase complexes, with the aim to more adequately represent what is known about the process and dynamics of protein complex formation in order to better serve the broader scientific community. |
