About IDPO
The Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Ontology (IDPO)7.1 provides a controlled vocabulary for describing the unique characteristics of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs)2 and intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs)3. Unlike globular proteins with well-defined tertiary structures, IDPs and IDRs exist as dynamic conformational ensembles1 and often undergo structural transitions upon interaction or under specific conditions.
IDPO captures three major aspects of intrinsic disorder:
- Structural States4, encompassing various degrees of disorder and structural heterogeneity.
- Structural Transitions5, including disorder-to-order and order-to-disorder transitions.
- Functional Roles, covering the diverse molecular functions, biological processes, and interaction mechanisms associated with IDPs and IDRs, such as molecular recognition and self-interaction.
The ontology is designed to support research in structural biology, bioinformatics, molecular biology, and related fields by standardizing terminology across experimental and computational studies, facilitating data integration and interoperability, and enabling the annotation and analysis of IDP-related information in biological databases.
IDPO in DisProt
A central platform for employing IDPO is the DisProt 6.2 database6, a manually curated resource for experimentally validated intrinsically disordered proteins. In DisProt:
- Disordered regions are annotated with characteristics and functions using IDPO terms.
- Each ontology term has its own dedicated page with ID, name, definition, and cross-references.
How IDPO was created
IDPO was developed in close collaboration with expert scientists and curators from the IDP community to support data sharing practices that comply with the FAIR principles7.2.
Terms and definitions used for describing structural states, transitions, and functions of IDPs/IDRs were gathered from the IDP research community, and from a systematic revision of published literature. The ontology is made available in both OBO7.4 and OWL7.5 formats to facilitate interoperability and broad usability.
The IDPO can be explored directly through the DisProt Ontology page under the “Explore IDPO” section. All available versions of the ontology can be downloaded from the DisProt Download page, under the “IDPontology” section.
The IDPO GitHub repository containing the ontology, including all formats and release versions, is available here:
Get Involved
We welcome contributions to IDPO. You can:
Submit new terms, suggest edits, or provide feedback through the GitHub repository.
Contact the IDPO team directly by email: idpo@idpcentral.org
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.