This Research Coordination Network (RCN) project supports the establishment of the RNA Ontology Consortium (ROC), which aims to create an integrating conceptual framework--an RNA Ontology (RO)--with which to understand RNA function in biological systems and to advance research in RNA biology, chemistry and genomics. This will require the integration of the research paradigms of chemists, molecular biologists, genomicists, information scientists and structural biologists, and will in turn require the creation of a common, dynamic, controlled vocabulary (the RO), pertaining to RNA function and based on RNA sequences, secondary and three-dimensional structures. Thus, the central objective of the ROC is to identify all RNA motifs mentioned in the literature or appearing in databases, to agree upon a definition for each motif and to write that definition down in a structured manner. This is very timely as knowledge about RNA accumulates and progresses rapidly. The purposes for creating the RO are therefore (1) to integrate sequence and structural databases and (2) to create powerful software tools that bring advanced computational methods to the bench scientist. In short, this will advance RNA science by turning diverse information and data accumulation into knowledge. To achieve these aims, ROC will foster communication and promote collaboration among RNA scientists by coordinating frequent face-to-face workshops to discuss, debate, and resolve difficult conceptual issues. These meeting opportunities will create new research directions at various levels of RNA research. At the RNA Society meeting each year, ROC working groups will report progress and obtain feedback from the wider community of RNA scientists. The broader impacts of the project will flow from the tangible products of the networking activities: (1) the RNA Ontology itself, (2) usefully linked databases, and (3) powerfully integrated software. The creation of the RO will facilitate communication and collaboration among the overlapping communities of scientists involved in various aspects of RNA science. Moreover, the RO will provide students and teachers of science at all levels with clear concepts for understanding the molecular basis of life, and the important roles played by RNA. The integration of disparate sources of information and the creation of integrated software and collaboration tools will expand and enhance the ability of bench scientists to interpret their experimental data and of computational biologists and genomicists to mine genomic data. The project will build on the experience of the core group in constructing the RNA mark-up language, RNAML, the structural mark-up language PDBML, a comprehensive classification of basepairing in RNA, as well as SCOR (Structural Classification of RNA) and the Riboweb project. The ROC will work closely with the Gene Ontology and Sequence Ontology communities to create a comprehensive integrated ontology pertaining to RNA and will make its work accessible on the World-Wide Web using servers hosted by Bowling Green State University. The Consortium has the support of the RNA Society to actively foster participation in its activities and to seek broad input for its work. The mechanism for actively promoting diverse participation will include active recruitment by the Coordinator and Steering Committee and dissemination of information regarding the ROC through the WWW and the email lists of the RNA Society and related professional societies. The ROC encourages the participation of all interested scientists.
