Preclinical DataCite Ontology (PCDO)
A minimal, reusable ontology capturing preclinical study semantics aligned to DataCite for DOI deposition.
Dataset
The DOI-minted dataset deliverable.
A collection of data intended for publication and citation via a persistent identifier (e.g., DOI), accompanied by descriptive metadata.
Study
A preclinical investigation comprising cohorts, interventions, assays, and outcomes.
An investigation in which preclinical subjects are assigned to interventions and measured via assays to assess outcome measures.
Cohort
Group of subjects with shared characteristics and treatment.
A collection of subjects grouped by shared attributes (e.g., sex, strain) and/or assigned intervention within a study.
Subject
An experimental animal subject (organism).
An individual organism serving as the unit of assignment and observation in a preclinical study.
Intervention
A planned process such as a drug administration or procedure.
A planned process applied to a subject or cohort (e.g., administration of a chemical agent or a surgical procedure).
Assay
An assay used to generate observations (measurements).
A planned process that implements a method to measure or detect an outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
An observable property measured as a study outcome.
A property or variable selected as an endpoint to evaluate the effect of an intervention (e.g., blood glucose level, tumor volume).
Observation
A concrete observation linking an assay to a feature of interest and result.
A measurement instance produced by an assay on a feature of interest at a time, possibly with a result value.
Sample
A specimen derived from a subject.
A material entity collected from a subject for analysis (e.g., blood, tissue).
Ethics Approval
An institutional ethics approval document or identifier.
A document or identifier indicating that the study protocol received required institutional ethics approval.
describes study
has ethics approval
has cohort
has assay
has outcome measure
has subject
has species
Link to an NCBITaxon IRI.
has strain
has sex
Link to a PATO sex class (male/female/unknown).
applies to cohort
has agent
The active agent, e.g., a CHEBI chemical.
has route
has schedule
observes
age in days
body weight (g)
dose value
has dose unit
Link to a QUDT unit IRI (e.g., unit:MilliGM).
route label
schedule label
is randomized
is blinded
sample size