Correlative Relationships

These relationship types link abundances and biological processes when no causal relationship is known. The order of subject and object terms does not matter in a statement with a correlative relationship, unlike a statement with a causal relationship.

Correlation

For terms A and B that are stated to be correlated, but not signified whether it is positive or negative. This is more specific than the association relationship.

Will be added in BEL v2.3 with BEP-0012.

Negative Correlation

For terms A and B, A negativeCorrelation B or A neg B indicates that changes in A and B have been observed to be negatively correlated. The order of the subject and object does not affect the interpretation of the statement, thus B negativeCorrelation A is equivalent to A negativeCorrelation B.

Positive Correlation

For terms A and B, A positiveCorrelation B or A pos B indicates that changes in A and B have been observed to be positively correlated. The order of the subject and object does not affect the interpretation of the statement, thus B positiveCorrelation A is equivalent to A positiveCorrelation B.

No Correlation

For terms A and B that have been measured to not be correlated. The lack of correlation between A and B can also be used to infer a lack of causation.

Added in BEL v2.1 with BEP-0003