Gene Ontology (GO) terms are derived from dynamic controlled vocabularies, or ontologies, produced by the Gene Ontology Consortium to describe the roles of genes and gene products in all organisms. The Gene Ontology Consortium has developed and continues to expand ontologies of terms that define the molecular functions, biological processes, and cellular components:

• Molecular Function: Terms that describe what a gene product does at a biochemical level.
• Biological Process: Broad biological processes that are accomplished by ordered assemblies of molecular functions.
• Cellular Component: Subcellular structures, locations, and macromolecular complexes in the cell where a gene product is found.

The GO annotations in ZFIN are divided into four columns:

Ontology	From which ontology the GO term is derived (Molecular Function, Biological Process, or Cellular Component).
GO Term	The Gene Ontology term. The GO term is linked to the QuickGO ontology browser entry.
Evidence	The evidence code supporting the annotation of the GO term to the gene product. The evidence code in the table is linked to a list of descriptions, criteria, and use of each evidence code.
Reference	A link to the reference in ZFIN from which the annotation was derived.