Proteins and functional modules are evolutionarily conserved even between distantly related species, and allow knowledge transfer between well-characterized model organisms and human. The underlying biological concept is called ‘Orthology’ and the identification of gene relationships is the basis for comparative studies.

 

 

More than 30 phylogenomic databases provide their analysis results to the scientific community. The content of these databases differs in many ways, such as the number of species, taxonomic range, sampling density, and applied methodology. What is more, phylogenomic databases differ in their concepts, making a comparison difficult – for the benchmarking of analysis results as well as for the user community to select the most appropriate database for a particular experiment.

 

 

The Quest for Orthologs (QfO) is a joint effort to benchmark, improve and standardize orthology predictions. In 2009, there was a first meeting of groups working on orthology detection and phylogenomic databases, titled "Quest for Orthologs". This meeting was successful in defining a community of researchers with shared goals, who decided to collaborate on benchmarking and sharing reference datasets. This was followed by a second Quest for Orthologs meeting in 2011, during which work on benchmarking continued, with fruitful discussions on the evolution of gene function between orthologs (the "ortholog conjecture"), the need for increasingly clear evolutionary definitions, and emerging new methods.

 

 

The QfO is an international scientific meeting that covers all aspects of orthology prediction, benchmarking, and application. Participants are Principal Investigators and leading experts in the field. Results of the meeting are likely to have a direct impact on the provision of high-quality orthology predictions by phylogenomic databases and the design of trend-setting concepts for future applications.