semantic-similarity-biomedical-go-functional-not-sequence

IN premise — summaries/2026/08/24/wiki-Semantic_similarity.md

Created 2026-08-25T02:58:54+00:00

In biomedical informatics, semantic similarity compares gene/protein function via GO terms and is distinct from and complementary to sequence similarity (e.g., BLAST); tools include ProteInOn, CMPSim, and CESSM.

Summary

When comparing genes or proteins, "looking alike in their DNA or amino-acid sequence" and "doing the same biological job" are two separate questions, and neither fully answers the other. A system that only matches sequences will miss functionally related genes that have diverged, while one that only matches functions may conflate unrelated proteins that evolved similar roles, so both angles (and the dedicated tools that compute each) are needed for a complete picture.