The RNA Ontology (RNAO): An ontology for integrating RNA sequence and structure data

Biomedical Ontologies are intended to integrate diverse biomedical data to enable intelligent data-mining and facilitate translation of basic research into useful clinical knowledge. We present the first version of RNAO, an ontology for integrating RNA 3D structural, biochemical and sequence data. While each 3D data file depicts the structure of a specific molecule, such data have broader significance as representatives of classes of homologous molecules, which, while differing in sequence, generally share core structural features of functional importance. Thus, 3D structure data gain value by being linked to homologous sequences in genomic data and databases of sequence alignments. Likewise genomic data can increase in value by annotation of shared structural features, especially when these can be linked to specific functions. The RNAO is being developed in line with the developing standards of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Consortium.