Notes on Nomenclature


At the Gene Mapping Workshop held during the 22nd Conference of the International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) held in East Lansing, Michigan, USA it was resolved unanimously that animal gene nomenclature should “follow the rules for human gene nomenclature, including the use of identical symbols for homologous genes and the reservation of human symbols for yet unidentified animals genes”. [Animal Genetics (1991) 22, 97-99] The report from the workshop cited the human gene nomenclature rules and lists of mapped genes as published in Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics proceedings of the Human Gene Mapping Workshops. Approved human gene symbols and nomenclature rules can now be accessed through the Web site maintained by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee

The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee is responsible for approving and implementing unique human gene symbols and names, and works closely with the Mouse Genome Database and other organism databases. Considerable efforts are made to approve symbols acceptable to workers in the field, but sometimes it is not possible to use exactly what has previously appeared in the literature. In such cases the previously used symbols are listed as aliases for the approved nomenclature in the Human Gene Nomenclature Database (Genew) and LocusLink, to allow retrieval of all the information available for each gene.

Contact: info@thearkdb.org