efo

is a Ontology.

The Experimental Factor Ontology (EFO) provides a systematic description of many experimental variables available in EBI databases, and for projects such as the GWAS catalog. It combines parts of several biological ontologies, such as UBERON anatomy, ChEBI chemical compounds, and Cell Ontology.

License

Apache 2.0

Homepage

efo

Repository

GitHub

Infores ID

infores:efo

FAIRsharing ID

Unknown

Product Summary

Products

From this Resource
ID Name URL Category Format Description
efo.owl EFO OWL efo.owl (229.5 MB) OntologyProduct owl The latest release of EFO in OWL format
efo.obo EFO OBO efo.obo (61.1 MB) OntologyProduct obo The latest release of EFO in OBO format
efo.ols EFO in OLS efo GraphicalInterface http Browse EFO with EBI's Ontology Lookup...
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clinicalkg.graph CKG Graph Dump 1 GraphProduct mixed had primary source Neo4j database dump of the Clinical K...
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pharmebinet.json PharMeBINet JSON Release content (1.8 GB) GraphProduct json was derived from PharMeBINet V2 JSON release published...
pharmebinet.tsv PharMeBINet TSV Release content (1.8 GB) GraphProduct tsv was derived from PharMeBINet V2 TSV release published ...
pharmebinet.graphml PharMeBINet GraphML Release content (1.9 GB) GraphProduct mixed was derived from PharMeBINet V2 GraphML release publis...
pharmebinet.neo4j PharMeBINet Neo4j Database content (3.6 GB) GraphProduct neo4j was derived from PharMeBINet V2 Neo4j database release...
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biobtree.api BioBTree REST API api ProgrammingInterface http had primary source REST API for searching identifiers an...

Details

Experimental Factor Ontology

The Experimental Factor Ontology (EFO) provides a systematic description of many experimental variables available in EBI databases and for projects such as the NHGRI-EBI GWAS catalog. It combines parts of several biological ontologies, such as UBERON anatomy, ChEBI chemical compounds, Cell Ontology, and most recently, the Monarch Disease Ontology (MONDO).

The scope of EFO is to support the annotation, analysis, and visualization of data handled by many groups at the EBI and as the core ontology for Open Targets. EFO is developed by the EMBL-EBI Samples, Phenotypes and Ontologies Team (SPOT).

EFO has undergone significant restructuring in version 3, particularly in the disease branch, to improve classification based on current medical understanding and alignment with existing domain ontologies. This was achieved through mapping the EFO disease and disease staging branches to the Monarch Disease Ontology (MONDO).

EFO is actively maintained with regular releases available through its GitHub repository. It is widely used in biomedical resources including:

  • Open Targets platform
  • Gene Expression Atlas
  • ArrayExpress
  • And many other EBI databases and external resources

Users can browse EFO through the EBI’s Ontology Lookup Service (OLS), submit new terms through GitHub issues, and download the latest release in various formats including OWL and OBO.

Is this information incorrect or incomplete? Request an update.

Created: June 04, 2025 | Last modified: February 18, 2026