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Figure 4 | Journal of Biomedical Semantics

Figure 4

From: Nose to tail, roots to shoots: spatial descriptors for phenotypic diversity in the Biological Spatial Ontology

Figure 4

Axes applied to organism parts. In vascular (A) and non-vascular plants (B), the ‘apical-basal axis relative to direction of growth’ (purple) runs in the direction of apical growth, in both shoots and roots. For lateral organs such as branches or leaves (A), the primary axis is the ‘proximal-distal axis’ (green) and the ‘adaxial-abaxial axis’ (pink). In plants or organisms with a thalloid growth form (B), the ‘apical-basal axis relative to direction of growth’ often runs parallel to the substrate, resulting in a ‘dorsal-ventral axis’ that runs perpendicular to the substrate and a ‘medial-lateral axis’ that is perpendicular to the ‘apical-basal axis’. C) Hippocampal pyramidal neuron, showing the application of the BSPO classes ‘apical-basal axis relative to substrate’ and ‘proximal-distal axis’ to the whole cell or portions thereof. D) AP axes for the head, neck and trunk of the giraffe. Note that these axis definitions delineate a “bent” version of the primary AP axis. E) AP axis of the human brain (double-headed red arrow) relative to the AP axis of the body (single red arrow). Note the use of “superior” and “inferior” to refer to structures relative to the substrate.

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