You may already be familiar with the Gene Ontology (GO) summary ribbons from Gene reports (e.g. Shc) which provide a graphical overview of a gene product's biological roles. FlyBase has now added stacked GO ribbons to the Gene Group and Pathway reports, to allow a direct at-a-glance comparison of the genes listed in these collections. These ribbons can be used to look for functional signatures - for example, highlighting common biological processes, or to highlight differences e.g. enzymatic and non-enzymatic subunits of a complex (e.g. MALE SPECIFIC LETHAL COMPLEX gene group, see figure below).

We plan to implement stacked GO ribbons as a stand-alone tool that can accept user-defined lists of genes in a future FlyBase release.