OntoTiger: a platform of ontology-based application tools for integrative biomedical exploration

TL;DR

OntoTiger is a platform that integrates over 20 algorithms to explore biomedical ontologies and molecular relationships in a user-friendly way.

Contribution

OntoTiger introduces a unified platform integrating >20 ontology-based algorithms for biomedical exploration.

Findings

OntoTiger supports six molecular types and five ontologies, including GO, DO, and HPO.

The platform includes four modules for annotation, similarity, prediction, and enrichment analysis.

OntoTiger is freely accessible via a web server for one-stop ontology-based applications.

Abstract

Biomedical ontologies, such as Gene Ontology (GO), Disease Ontology (DO), and the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), have been extensively applied to characterize molecular roles and their semantic relationships in biomedical research and clinical practice. Although numerous algorithms have been developed to quantify relationships between ontology terms or to explore molecular functions, the absence of a comprehensive tool to integrate these algorithms has limited effective ontology applications. To address this, we developed OntoTiger, a platform of Ontology-based application Tools for InteGrativE biomedical exploRation. OntoTiger combines >20 classic algorithms, supporting six prevalent molecular types as well as five widespread biomedical ontologies. The platform comprises four modules: (i) Annotation module, which qualifies the relationships between ontology terms and molecules; (ii) Similarity module, quantifying functional similarity between/across pairwise ontology terms or between molecules; (iii) Prediction module, characterizing the molecular roles from an ontological perspective; and (iv) Enrichment module, elucidating the potential biological significance of a particular list of molecules. OntoTiger provides a freely accessible, user-friendly web server dedicated to enabling one-stop ontology-based applications and is freely available at https://bio-computing.hrbmu.edu.cn/OntoTiger.

Graphical Abstract

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