查看文章

As the Gene Ontology (GO) plays more and more important roles in bioinformatics research, there has been great interest in developing objective and accurate methods for calculating semantic similarity between GO terms. In this chapter, the authors first introduce the basic concepts related to the GO and then briefly review the current advances and challenges in the development of methods for calculating semantic similarity between GO terms. Then, the authors introduce a semantic similarity method that does not rely on external data sources. Using this method as an example, the authors show how different properties of the GO can be explored to calculate semantic similarities between pairs of GO terms. The authors conclude the chapter by presenting some thoughts on the directions for future research in this field.