7 Ontologies and functional genomics

High-throughput methodologies have increased by orders of magnitude the possibility of obtaining data in orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, translating data into useful biological knowledge is not an easy task. We review how bioontologies, and in particular, gene ontology, can be used to understand the biological roles played by genes that account for the phenotypes studied, which is the ultimate goal of functional genomics. Statistical issues related to high-throughput methodologies, such as the high occurrence of false or spurious associations, are also discussed