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Motivated by a review of Jokhai, Dundes et al. (2026) "Two parallel neural
ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain", Nature
Neuroscience, PMID:42760324, doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7.
UBERON represents the neural ectoderm only as a single undivided class,
'neuroectoderm' (UBERON:0002346). The earliest regional subdivisions it
carries are neural plate stage or later ('pre-chordal neural plate'
UBERON:0003056, 'chordal neural plate' UBERON:0003057, 'future forebrain'
UBERON:0006240, 'presumptive midbrain' UBERON:0009616, 'presumptive
hindbrain' UBERON:0007277). The gastrulation-stage anterior/posterior
split of the neural ectoderm, which classical fate maps of zebrafish,
frog, chicken and mouse have described and which this paper characterises
molecularly and by lineage tracing, had no representation, so data
annotated to aNE/pNE had nowhere to land except the undivided parent.
Two new terms, both part_of 'neuroectoderm':
- UBERON:9900001 'anterior neural ectoderm' (aNE)
SOX2+ OTX2+ GBX2- rostral neural ectoderm; has_potential_to_develop_into
forebrain and midbrain; anterior_to posterior neural ectoderm
- UBERON:9900002 'posterior neural ectoderm' (pNE)
SOX2+ GBX2+ OTX2-low caudal neural ectoderm; has_potential_to_develop_into
hindbrain; posterior_to anterior neural ectoderm
Both classify under 'embryonic tissue' (UBERON:0005291) after reasoning.
The genus is 'tissue' rather than 'presumptive structure' (UBERON:0006598),
and this is deliberate; an editor_note on each term records why. With the
presumptive-structure genus, ELK makes aNE a subclass of both 'future
forebrain' and 'presumptive midbrain', and pNE a subclass of 'presumptive
hindbrain', because those three are defined by equivalence as
'presumptive structure and has_potential_to_develop_into some <region>'.
Those classes assert develops_from the anterior or posterior neural tube,
so the entailment would place a gastrulation-stage domain downstream of
the neural tube. The fate is instead recorded with plain
has_potential_to_develop_into relations, which 64 other UBERON classes
already use that way.
Each term also carries a homology_notes recording the paper's report of
mutually exclusive Otx+/Gbx+ ectodermal domains in mouse, macaque, chicken
and zebrafish gastrulae and in the hemichordate Saccoglossus kowalevskii,
and a terminology_notes warning curators off conflating these classes with
the neural plate and neural tube stage classes listed above.
Verified: robot convert round-trips the edit file unchanged (normalisation
clean), robot reason with ELK completes with no unsatisfiable classes, and
robot report with the repo profile flags nothing on either new term.
IDs are in the temporary UBERON:99xxxxx range per CLAUDE.md and need to be
minted properly before merge.
Not done here, noted as a follow-up: UBERON has no 'neural plate border' /
'border ectoderm' class either, which the same paper's Fig. 1h uses
alongside surface ectoderm. That gap is better filled from the neural
crest literature than from this paper, where it is a secondary result.
Signed-off-by: @ai4c-agent
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_013vJpYZvvvEbLNxpf9RrV4D
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Claude finished @cmungall's task in 4m 39s —— View job Review checklist
SummaryTwo new terms, Hierarchy/logic — verified sound. The editor_note's stated reason for using The Relationship types used ( 🔴 CRITICAL: PMID:42760324 / DOI:10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7 could not be verifiedEvery substantive claim in both new terms — the definitions, the detailed comments (E7.5 Sox2-CreER Confetti lineage tracing, Gbx2-CreER labelling to E18.5, hPSC identity-challenge experiments), and the 🔵 SUGGESTION
Not independently re-runI don't have RecommendationRequesting changes, solely to get the citation independently verified — the ontology modelling itself is sound and well-reasoned. |
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The ontology modelling in this PR is sound: I traced the reasoning behind the embryonic tissue classification claim and the tissue-vs-presumptive structure genus choice by hand against the edit file, and both check out. Relationship types, reciprocal anterior_to/posterior_to axioms, and metadata (dc-contributor, dcterms-date) are all correctly formed, and there's no ID collision.
Requesting changes for one reason only: every definition, comment, and homology_notes claim on both new terms rests entirely on PMID:42760324 / DOI:10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7 ("Jokhai, Dundes et al. 2026, Nature Neuroscience"), and I was unable to verify this citation resolves to a real record (all external lookup tools were unavailable in my environment). Per this repo's own guidance to never guess PMIDs, please have this confirmed via PubMed/Europe PMC/Crossref before merge — if it doesn't check out, the terms need to be re-sourced.
Full review: see PR comment.
2 participants
Motivated by a review of Jokhai, Dundes et al. (2026) "Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain", Nature Neuroscience, PMID:42760324, doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7.
Why
UBERON represents the neural ectoderm only as a single undivided class,
neuroectoderm(UBERON:0002346). The earliest regional subdivisions it carries are all neural plate stage or later:pre-chordal neural plate(UBERON:0003056)chordal neural plate(UBERON:0003057)future forebrain(UBERON:0006240)presumptive midbrain(UBERON:0009616)presumptive hindbrain(UBERON:0007277)The gastrulation-stage anterior/posterior split of the neural ectoderm — described by classical fate maps of zebrafish, frog, chicken and mouse, and characterised molecularly and by lineage tracing in this paper — had no representation, so data annotated to aNE/pNE had nowhere to land except the undivided parent.
The paper's headline result is that the brain does not derive from one common neural ectoderm progenitor. Two arise simultaneously during gastrulation (~E7.5 in mouse): Sox2+ Otx2+ anterior neural ectoderm (forebrain/midbrain) and Sox2+ Gbx2+ posterior neural ectoderm (hindbrain). Acute Gbx2-CreER labelling confines pNE progeny to the hindbrain through E18.5, and hPSC-derived aNE and pNE each fail to adopt the other's identity when challenged with the opposing region-inducing signals.
What
Two new terms, both
part_ofneuroectoderm(UBERON:0002346):UBERON:9900001
anterior neural ectoderm(aNE)SOX2+ OTX2+ GBX2- rostral neural ectoderm;
has_potential_to_develop_intoforebrain (UBERON:0001890) and midbrain (UBERON:0001891);anterior_toposterior neural ectodermUBERON:9900002
posterior neural ectoderm(pNE)SOX2+ GBX2+ OTX2-low caudal neural ectoderm;
has_potential_to_develop_intohindbrain (UBERON:0002028);posterior_toanterior neural ectodermBoth classify under
embryonic tissue(UBERON:0005291) after reasoning.Each term also carries a
homology_notesrecording the paper's report of mutually exclusive Otx+/Gbx+ ectodermal domains in mouse, macaque, chicken and zebrafish gastrulae and in the hemichordate Saccoglossus kowalevskii, and aterminology_noteswarning curators off conflating these classes with the neural plate and neural tube stage classes listed above.Modelling decision worth reviewing
The genus is
tissuerather thanpresumptive structure(UBERON:0006598), deliberately; aneditor_noteon each term records why.With the presumptive-structure genus, ELK makes aNE a subclass of both
future forebrainandpresumptive midbrain, and pNE a subclass ofpresumptive hindbrain, because those three are defined by equivalence aspresumptive structure and has_potential_to_develop_into some <region>. Those classes assertdevelops_fromthe anterior or posterior neural tube, so the entailment would place a gastrulation-stage domain downstream of the neural tube — which is wrong, and directly contradicts the paper's explicit framing of aNE/pNE as pre-neural-plate populations that precede Sox1/Pax6 expression.The fate is instead recorded with plain
has_potential_to_develop_intorelations, which 64 other UBERON classes already use that way. Happy to revisit if there's a preferred idiom for fate-restricted gastrulation-stage domains.Validation
robot convertround-tripssrc/ontology/uberon-edit.obounchanged (normalisation clean)robot reason --reasoner ELKcompletes with no unsatisfiable classesrobot report --profile src/ontology/profile.txtflags nothing on either new term (0 ERRORs overall)Before merge
IDs are in the temporary
UBERON:99xxxxxrange per CLAUDE.md and need to be minted properly.Follow-up, not done here
UBERON has no
neural plate border/border ectodermclass either, which the same paper's Fig. 1h uses alongside surface ectoderm. That gap is better filled from the neural crest literature than from this paper, where it is a secondary result.Signed-off-by: @ai4c-agent
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