Hematopoietic Cell Types: Prototype for a Revised Cell Ontology

Abstract

The Cell Ontology (CL) aims for the representation of in vivo and in vitro cell types from all of biology. Although the CL is a reference ontology of the OBO Foundry, it requires extensive revision to bring it up to current standards for biomedical ontologies, both in its structure and its coverage of various subfields of biology. A recent workshop sponsored by NIAID on hematopoietic cell types in the CL addressed both issues. The section of the ontology dealing with hematopoietic cells was extensively revised, and plans were set for structuring these cell type terms as cross-products with logical definitions built from relationships to external ontologies, such as the Protein Ontology and the Gene Ontology. The methods and improvement to the CL in this area represent a paradigm for improvement of the whole of the ontology over time.