Development and Dissemination of the Japanese Translation of the Mammalian Phenotype Ontology as an Open Resource

The Mammalian Phenotype Ontology is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary encompassing phenotypic terms related to congenital anomalies, developmental abnormalities, and other mammalian phenotypes, developed by Mouse Genome Informatics. Although this ontology was originally created in English, multilingualization is essential for broadening its impact by improving accessibility for researchers worldwide. To address this need, we developed a Japanese translation of the Mammalian Phenotype Ontology to support non-English-speaking research communities in Japan. The Japanese translation of this ontology was produced using a systematic human-in-the-loop workflow consisting of machine translation, systematic manual review, and expert curation. Manual curation is a critical component of this process, as automated translation alone is insufficient for accurately rendering domain-specific phenotype terminology. The Japanese-translated Mammalian Phenotype Ontology has been integrated into multiple data resources and search platforms, including experimental animal resource databases and disease-oriented data integration services. This integration enables users to search for and interpret annotated mouse phenotypes using Japanese terminology and has significantly improved the accessibility and usability of Mammalian Phenotype Ontology-based services for non-English-speaking Japanese researchers, students, and laboratory animal caretakers. In addition, the Japanese translation of the Mammalian Phenotype Ontology is publicly released and formally incorporated into the official Mammalian Phenotype Ontology distribution through collaboration with Mouse Genome Informatics, allowing regular updates synchronized with ongoing development. This study highlights the importance of localizing ontology vocabularies to advance global accessibility and presents a practical framework for systematic ontology translation.