Automated annotation of Drosophila gene expression patterns using a controlled vocabulary

Regulation of gene expression in space and time directs its localization to a specific subset of cells during development. Systematic determination of the spatiotemporal dynamics of gene expression plays an important role in understanding the regulatory networks driving development. An atlas for the gene expression patterns of fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has been created by whole-mount in situ hybridization, and it documents the dynamic changes of gene expression pattern during Drosophila embryogenesis. The spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression are integrated by anatomical terms from a controlled vocabulary linking together intermediate tissues developed from one another. Currently, the terms are assigned to patterns manually. However, the number of patterns generated by high-throughput in situ hybridization is rapidly increasing. It is, therefore, tempting to approach this problem by employing computational methods.