Gene ontology files

Files are available in the following formats:

  • OBO 1.4: human- and machine-readable; can be opened in any text editor
  • OWL: can be opened with Protégé.
  • Three versions of the ontology are available, as described below.
Name  Description Permanent URL Download link
go-basic.obo The basic version of the GO, filtered such that the graph is guaranteed to be acyclic and annotations can be propagated up the graph. The relations included are is a, part of, regulates, negatively regulates and positively regulates. This version excludes relationships that cross the 3 GO hierarchies. This version should be used with most GO-based annotation tools.  http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go/go-basic.obo  Download go-basic.obo file
go.obo & go.owl Core ontology. This view includes relationships not in the filtered version of GO including has_part and occurs_in. Many of these relationships may not be safe for propagating annotations across, so this version should not be used with legacy GO tools. This version excludes relationships to external ontologies. http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go.obo / http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go.owl  Download go.obo file /  Download go.owl file
go-plus.owl This is the fully axiomatised version of the GO. It includes cross-ontology relationships (axioms) and imports additional required ontologies including ChEBI, Cell Ontology and Uberon. It also includes a complete set of relationship types including some not in go.obo/go.owl. This version is only available in OWL format. http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go/extensions/go-plus.owl  Download go-plus.owl file

GO subset files

GO subsets (also known as GO slims) are condensed versions of the GO containing a subset of the terms. They are specified by tags within the ontology that indicate if a given term is a member of a particular subset. GO subsets are particularly useful for providing a broad overview of the range of functions and processes. More information can and links for downloading subsets be found on the Guide to GO subsets page.

Cross-references of GO to other classification systems

Many GO classes have been cross-referenced (mapped) to a number of external classification systems. The cross-references of external classification systems to GO page contains more information and links to the cross-reference2GO files.

Snapshot editions

As of April 2019, the standard PURLs for GO will resolve to the monthly (release) version. We strongly recommend using the latest official release instead of snapshot. If you have need to access the snapshot (daily) version, use /snapshot/ in the URL. For example:

  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go/snapshot/go.obo
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go/snapshot/go.owl
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/go/snapshot/extensions/go-plus.owl
  • OBO format tools in GitHub: a wrapper for the Java (OWL-API) implementation of a parser for OBOF1.4 syntax and an implementation of the OBOF1.4 mapping to OWL (uses the OWL API)
  • OWL API in Github: a Java API for creating, manipulating and serialising OWL Ontologies