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obophenotype / uberon

An ontology of gross anatomy covering metazoa. Works in concert with https://github.com/obophenotype/cell-ontology
http://obophenotype.github.io/uberon/
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NTR: egg in potentia #3124

Open DitchingIt opened 7 months ago

DitchingIt commented 7 months ago

egg in potentia

I'm struggling to find a home for a new class I want to be able to refer to as a participant in the ontology I do most editing on (NBO). @gouttegd has suggested this may be the place to have the discussion.

What is it?

The GO:0018991 egg-laying behavior definition mentions '...the deposition of eggs (either fertilized or not)...'

The UBERON:0007379 shelled egg definition mentions a '...hard-shelled reproductive body...'

Neither of the above mentioned participants occur as described in any OBO Foundry ontology I can find (although: PORO:0000900 reproductive body exists as an undefined class with asexual subclasses that are probably taxon constrained to Porifera although not annotated as such; CL:0000025 egg cell is as yet unfertilised; CL:0000365 animal zygote is fertilised).

Furthermore, the class relations of UBERON:0007379 require it to be fertilised (being part of the embryo branch), yet most eggs we eat are hard shelled yet unfertilised. I have myself observed the delectation of opening eggs in a banquet in the Chinese Province of Zhejiang in which uncertainty about fertilisation was part of the relish - the delicacy of boiled chick embryo being only in potentia. Arguably UBERON:0007379 should actually be a subclass of my suggested class.

I want a term that can be a participant in behaviors akin to GO:0018991; not necessarily because a given behavior observation involves uncertainty about whether the egg is fertilised or unfertilised (although for many taxa, it will not yet have been researched), but because the behavior itself can look identical (e.g. in underwater egg broadcasting).

It may seem a bit philosophical but it is a pragmatic issue in animal behavior. My suggestion of 'in potentia' is not focused on the uncertainty of the egg-object (i.e. it is not in a quasi-superpositional state like Schrödinger's Cat). Rather it focuses on the uncertainty about its future as it presents now. I have attempted a definition and suggested a reference below, but perhaps more important first is to debate the idea.

Definition

A reproductive body which could be fertilised.

Subclass of

UBERON:0005423 developing anatomical structure

NB: It need not be the parent of any more certainly defined class such as UBERON:0002050 embryonic structure.

Reference

Willis, R. A. (1950). The Borderland of Embryology and Pathology: The Middleton-Goldsmith Lecture. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 26(7), 440.

William Harvey who in his "De generations animalium" (1651) said of the egg "no part of the future offspring exists de facto, but all parts inhere in potentia."

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