NIF Data Spotlight: WormBase: Anatomy

In previous blog post, we have talked about the importance of C. elegans, or Caenorhabditis elegans, and how its genomic information can be accessed through Wormbase: Genes. In this blog post, we will discuss how we can utilize wormbase to learn more about the anatomy of C. elegans.

Wormbase: Anatomy is an ontology of controlled vocabulary for cellular anatomy. It has short description of an anatomical terms and shows its relationship to other terms in the ontology. Below is a portion of a result returned when gabaergic neuron is searched in the WormBase: Anatomy.


Using NIF, Wormbase: Anatomy can be accessed by searching for specific anatomical terms. For example, if we would like to receive an information on gabaergic neuron like the one above, we can use the search syntax gabaergic neuron. WormBase Anatomy can be found under Nervous System Level -> Cellular Level -> WormBaseAnatomy


Searching in NIF returns anatomical term, its description, expressed genes and affected phenotypes. Clicking on the term will take users to the WormBase: Anatomy page with more detailed information. For more instructions on how to use WormBase Anatomy, please visit WormBase: Anatomy Tutorial.

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The NIF Data Spotlight is a weekly blog post highlighting the databases, information, and resources curated by the Neuroscience Information Framework. For comments, questions or concerns feel free to drop us a line atcuration@neuinfo.org.