The Gene Ontology Consortium has unveiled a new resource detailing the known functions of all protein-coding human genes. This comprehensive encyclopedia represents a significant advancement in understanding gene functions across species.

For the first time, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, and other institutions have used large-scale evolutionary modeling to integrate human gene data with genetic information from other organisms. The result is a searchable public resource cataloging the known functions of over 20,000 genes, using the most accurate and complete evidence available.

Paul D. Thomas, senior author of the paper published in Nature, explained the resource's importance: "Our knowledge base allows scientists to go from just a list of genes to an understanding of their biological functions, sometimes even pointing toward potential treatments."

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The Gene Ontology, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has been continuously expanded and improved for over 25 years. It is already widely used in biomedical research, appearing in more than 30,000 publications annually to aid in data analysis and interpretation.

This latest milestone provides a new resource within the knowledge base that uses evolutionary modeling to enhance its capabilities. By combining experimental data from human genes with that obtained from related genes in model organisms like mice and zebrafish, it offers a more complete picture of human gene function, including insights where direct human study evidence is lacking.

The new resource, called the "PAN-GO functionome," was compiled by a team of over 150 biologists worldwide. They meticulously reviewed more than 175,000 scientific publications on gene function, categorizing each gene according to its biological functions from a catalog of over 40,000 functions.

While the PAN-GO functionome covers 82% of protein-coding genes, the functions of about 3,600 genes remain unknown, highlighting areas for future research. The Gene Ontology Consortium is encouraging researchers to use this new resource and contribute to its ongoing improvement through their website.