Dramatic advances in sequencing technology and sophisticated experimental assays that interrogate the cell, combined with the public availability of the resulting data, herald the era of systems biology. However, the biological functions of more than 40% of the genes in sequenced eukaryotic genomes are unknown, posing a fundamental barrier to progress in systems biology. The large scale and diversity of available data requires the development of techniques that can automatically utilise these data sets to make quantified and robust predictions of gene function that can be experimentally verified.
The Virtual Gene Ontology (VIRGO) enables a biologist to obtain targeted predictions of gene functions for a system of interest to the biologist. VIRGO takes gene expression data collected in the laboratory as input and
VIRGO assigns confidence estimates to predicted functions so that a biologist can prioritise predictions for further experimental study. For each prediction, VIRGO also provides an informative ``propagation diagram'' that traces the flow of information in the FLN that led to the prediction. To learn how to use VIRGO and find answers to questions you may have, please visit our help page.
You can query gene function predictions in S. cerevisiae and H. sapiens that we have already generated or proceed directly to analyse your gene expression dataset for these species. We will keep the predictions generated for your data private and visible only to you unless you explicitly tell us to make the predictions available to all users of VIRGO.