[Go] 'binding issues' item listed on the GO Consortium meeting agenda

Chris Mungall cjm at berkeleybop.org
Mon Mar 23 16:19:44 PDT 2009


On Mar 23, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Jim Hu wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I think this particular case should be ok as long as we have some  
> way of handling the is_conjugate_acid and is_conjugate_base  
> relationships.   "phosphoenolpyruvic acid" and "phosphoenolpyruvate"  
> interconvert in water, and very few papers will be able to  
> distinguish which form is the actual ligand.  I think that this  
> means that curators would correct to annotate to either, and  
> reasoners will have to know that annotations to one are equivalent  
> to annotations to the other.  Note that the conjugate acid/base  
> business here actually understates the chemical heterogeneity, as  
> the phosphate group in PEP is treated in ChEBI as if it doesn't  
> titrate. My colleagues point out that this doesn't even touch on  
> things like Mg-ATP vs ATP; adenylate kinase uses one of each!

Ah OK, now we're getting to the nitty gritty stuff. As I said, I think  
CHEBI and chemical entities present specific dfificulties that aren't  
present in other col 16 use cases.


> For most annotation, we don't care which form is used, as long as  
> they meet some criterion for being chemically "the same".  For me,  
> that would be having the same covalent structure and considering  
> titratable groups that dissociate easily in water as noncovalently  
> bound.  So, for annotation, I suppose I'd prefer a single term that  
> merged "phosphoenolpyruvic acid" and "phosphoenolpyruvate"

I agree. Or rather, more specifically, to avoid confusion, I think  
CHEBI should include a term that is the is_a parent of both  
"phosphoenolpyruvic acid" and "phosphoenolpyruvate"

I'm not sure what we would call this term.

> But ChEBI isn't set up that way.  In principle, I suppose we could  
> make a ChEBI slim for GO that only has the dominant form at  
> physiological pH?

I don't think a slim helps here. We want a new term.

We could in principle make an application ontology (similar to a slim)  
which has our own terms in it such as GOCHEM:1234 ! PEP, and then  
define these as unions of existing CHEBI terms. On a theoretical level  
there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but on a practical level  
I think there is a lot to be said for keeping things simple and using  
only pre-existing CHEBI terms, and engaging CHEBI in a dialog.

Note that Mike Bada took this approach (of making new on-the-fly terms  
that were the union of existing CHEBI IDs) when defining GO terms in  
the BP x CHEBI cross-product:

http://wiki.geneontology.org/index.php/XP:biological_process_xp_chebi#CHEBI_terms

>  Or we could ask the ChEBI people to change?

We can certainly ask.

> Did that make sense?

To me, but IANAC

> The functional parentage relationship is fundamentally very  
> different, and true path does emphatically not apply.  The  
> functional parent of PEP (both forms) is acrylate/acrylic acid,  
> which lacks the phosphate.  The covalent structure is different.   
> Some examples that might fall under what Harold is thinking about  
> might be: dUTP vs dTTP for DNA polymerase, or Isoleucine vs Valine  
> for aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.  In both cases, the single methyl  
> group can only provide a small amount of difference in binding  
> energy - which still gives a difference in affinity on the order of  
> 100-fold.  Misincorporation in the absence of proofreading is  
> evidence that these alternate substrates can bind, but I don't think  
> I would annotate valine binding to Ile-aaRS or dUTP binding to DNA  
> polymerase.
>
> Would people annotate azaC binding to reverse transcriptase?  I  
> wouldn't, but perhaps some would?
>
> Jim
>
>
> On Mar 23, 2009, at 4:25 PM, Harold Drabkin wrote:
>
>> From one of Jim's earlier comments, I think a big problem is  
>> parentage: if Chebi has a relationship between, say glucose-6  
>> phosphate and glucose (child parent or something) , and we have a  
>> protein that binds glucose-6-phosphate, we don't want to imply any  
>> binding to glucose ( it might, but it might not). Chebi may have  
>> relationships between, for example, for  ATP, ADP, and AMP, but a  
>> protein may bind very specifically to  one of them. And I suppose  
>> there are many cases where a protein can bind related chemicals  
>> with different non-zero affinities, so that if one annotated  
>> binding to one there may be a good chance it would bind another.  
>> Should there be a rule in how one interprets the annotation line so  
>> as to not read any relationships among things in the target  
>> ontology to the actual single term designated as the target for the  
>> GO annotation? (hope this is clear).fcc
>>
>> Harold
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris Mungall wrote:
>>> I have added this example to the col16 page:
>>> http://wiki.geneontology.org/index.php/Annotation_Cross_Products#Binding
>>>
>>> I think the use of CHEBI in annotation-time cross-products poses  
>>> specific problems
>>>
>>> * It's often not clear (to me anyway) which CHEBI term to use.  
>>> Jim's example (linked to in the above page) has "PEP binding".  
>>> CHEBI has two terms in which PEP is a RELATED synonym:  
>>> "phosphoenolpyruvic acid" and "phosphoenolpyruvate". neither of  
>>> these are defined in the traditional OBO sense. It's not clear if  
>>> the InChi strings count as they are under RELATED synonym too.
>>>
>>> (Jim/Debbie - since you provided this example can you comment on  
>>> this, I'm too lazy to read the PMID, thanks!)
>>>
>>> * Many CHEBI terms do not have is_a parents. It's extremely  
>>> important for there to be correct is_a parentage. For example, if  
>>> the post-composed term is "phosphoenolpyruvic acid binding" then  
>>> this can be inferred to be a subtype of GO:0042301 ! phosphate  
>>> binding, based on is_a parentage in CHEBI.
>>>
>>> * CHEBI has other relations, but their semantics are unclear
>>>
>>> This gives me reason for caution. However, I am optimistic - CHEBI  
>>> are willing to fix these things in their ontology.
>>>
>>> In particular I would propose the following guidelines for use of  
>>> CHEBI in annotation time cross-products
>>>
>>> * The CHEBI term *should* preferably have a definition. The GO  
>>> annotator who uses a CHEBI ID in col 16 should propose a  
>>> definition on the CHEBI tracker
>>> * The CHEBI term *must* have is_a ancestry to CHEBI:24431 !  
>>> molecular structure. If a GO annotator wishes to use a CHEBI ID in  
>>> col 16, and there is no such ancestry, the annotator should send a  
>>> request on the CHEBI tracker
>>> * The CHEBI term *should* have the correct synonym assignment. For  
>>> example, if the GO curator thinks the correct post-composed term  
>>> is "PEP binding" then PEP *must* be either an EXACT synonym or a  
>>> primary term name.
>>>
>>> On Mar 18, 2009, at 7:53 AM, Jim Hu wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Pascale,
>>>>
>>>> I think this is also potentially related to the discussion of  
>>>> whether/how the cross-product system can/should be used for post- 
>>>> composition of binding annotations.
>>>>
>>>> Jim
>>>>
>>>> On Mar 18, 2009, at 8:46 AM, Pascale Gaudet wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Emily,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am attaching the summary Debby Siegele put together about some  
>>>>> of the issues we've been having with substrate binding. (This  
>>>>> was sent to the ref genome list).
>>>>>
>>>>> Pascale
>>>>>
>>>>> Emily Dimmer wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I noticed that the GO Consortium meeting agenda for Monday 30th  
>>>>>> March has a item entitled 'binding issues'. However there is no  
>>>>>> indication of who added this topic.Could someone please give a  
>>>>>> bit more detail about why this item has been added?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do agree that it is an area that is probably worth discussing  
>>>>>> (particularly with regards ISSing 'protein binding'  
>>>>>> annotations). Its just that I feel that agenda items which deal  
>>>>>> with annotation issues are more easily resolved when the  
>>>>>> meeting participants have had advanced notice as to the  
>>>>>> background of the discussion topic, so to be able to review  
>>>>>> their database's annotation sets/collect their thoughts!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Emily
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>   Emily Dimmer Ph.D.
>>>>>>   GOA Coordinator
>>>>>>   EMBL-EBI
>>>>>>   Wellcome Trust Genome Campus
>>>>>>   Hinxton
>>>>>>   Cambridge CB10 1SD, U.K.
>>>>>>   Tel:     +44 1223 494654
>>>>>>   Fax:    +44 1223 494468
>>>>>>   email:  edimmer at ebi.ac.uk
>>>>>>   URL:    http://www.ebi.ac.uk/goa
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Go mailing list
>>>>>> Go at geneontology.org
>>>>>> http://fafner.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/go
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> < 
>>>>> BindingTermDocumentation 
>>>>> .doc>_______________________________________________
>>>>> Go mailing list
>>>>> Go at geneontology.org
>>>>> http://fafner.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/go
>>>>
>>>> =====================================
>>>> Jim Hu
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
>>>> 2128 TAMU
>>>> Texas A&M Univ.
>>>> College Station, TX 77843-2128
>>>> 979-862-4054
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Go mailing list
>>>> Go at geneontology.org
>>>> http://fafner.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/go
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Go mailing list
>>> Go at geneontology.org
>>> http://fafner.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/go
>>
>
> =====================================
> Jim Hu
> Associate Professor
> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
> 2128 TAMU
> Texas A&M Univ.
> College Station, TX 77843-2128
> 979-862-4054
>
>



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