FunTaxIS-lite: a simple and light solution to investigate protein functions in all living organisms

Abstract

Abstract Motivation Defining the full domain of protein functions belonging to an organism is a complex challenge that is due to the huge heterogeneity of the taxonomy, where single or small groups of species can bear unique functional characteristics. FunTaxIS-lite provides a solution to this challenge by determining taxon-based constraints on Gene Ontology (GO) terms, which specify the functions that an organism can or cannot perform. The tool employs a set of rules to generate and spread the constraints across both the taxon hierarchy and the GO graph. Results The taxon-based constraints produced by FunTaxIS-lite extend those provided by the Gene Ontology Consortium by an average of 300%. The implementation of these rules significantly reduces errors in function predictions made by automatic algorithms and can assist in correcting inconsistent protein annotations in databases. Availability and implementation FunTaxIS-lite is available on https://www.medcomp.medicina.unipd.it/funtaxis-lite and from https://github.com/MedCompUnipd/FunTaxIS-lite.