This web page was produced as an assignment for Genetics 677, an undergraduate course at UW-Madison.
The Gene Ontology Project
The Gene Ontology Project was developed to help scientists and non-scientists use a consistent description of genes and gene products across all species and databases. This is to provide a common language so that all people can understand this information and species specific language is avoided [1]. Gene ontology covers three domains, cellular component, molecular function, and biological process. Cellular components describe just that, the components of a cell, like the nucleus, ribosome, and mitochondrial matrix, for examples. Molecular function describes any molecular activities associated with the gene product or protein, examples might be catalytic activity or binding. Lastly, biological process describes an event or process that occurs in a living cell, such as cellular physiological process or signal transduction [2]. Note, a specific gene or gene product may be described with much more detail than the brief examples I gave.
BTBD9 gene ontology
For human BTBD9 protein, F5/8 C-type domain, the biological process is described as cell adhesion, accession: GO: 0007155 [3]. The molecular function of the BTB domain, of protein BTBD9, is protein binding, accession: GO:0005515 [4]. Cellular component is not yet described for BTBD9 [3].
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Analysis and Discussion
As the gene ontology for BTBD9 is so minimally developed, it is difficult to draw any detailed conclusions. Studies of BTBD9 are very new and little is yet known, so, logically the gene ontology has not been very developed. I expect it grow in the future as more research is completed and published. This gene ontology alerts us that the BTBD9 protein has an important role in binding other proteins. As I discuss more in my Conclusions and Future Directions page, BTBD9 has been shown to bind Cullin3, a ubiquitin protein, which may be important in determining whether or not the BTBD9 protein is degraded and, in turn, whether a person may be iron deficient and suffer from restless leg syndrome.