Being in biological sciences and in love with genetics, I have always been fascinated to find out how a gene - defined loosely as a segment of DNA that encodes a functional product which is usually a protein - is named. All of them have a story behind them, and usually it is related to their function or how the genes where discovered.
Often there are several names given to one gene as different groups work on the same gene give it different names without realising it until much later. There are conflicts too, as to which name should be kept and which ones to discard. What can make things even more complicated is that some names of genes are different from its protein; for instance the Tata-box binding protein Tbp1 is encoded by the SPT15 gene (Supressor of ty). To add to the complexity, it makes a difference if the names are written in caps, and the same gene may be written differently in different organisms like between man and mouse.
I was pleasantly surprised to find this website Clever gene names, with lists of gene names that are interesting and linked to popular culture or history among many themes. Who says scientists are boring nerdy people? ;) Here are some of my favourite names of genes taken from the site of the well studied fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster:
- clown: The clown's eye genes have a characteristic red and white appearance
- maggie: Development is arrested in mutants, as seems to have happened to Maggie of Simpons.
- ken and barbie: Both male and female mutants lack external genitalia, as do poor Ken and Barbie.
- tinman: Tinman mutants lack the heart, as did Tin Woodman in the 'Wizard of Oz'
- vulcan: Vulcan was the Roman God of fire and metal works. Jupiter, his father, threw him from heaven. As he fell down, both of his legs broke. Vulcan mutants have malformed legs.
- ether a go-go: Mutants shake their legs under general anesthesia (The ether is used for the purpose of the latter. Imagine such flies - must be quite cute! Reminds me of when I was young, I was told that if you shake your legs often, you will not win 4-D. Serious, I heard that!)
I have only worked with the fruit fly once during my course of study, and it was fun! They were small, and you had to be careful to prevent them from flying out of the bottle. To do some genetic analysis, we had to put the fruit flies under general anesthesia, but they kept waking up. Maybe we did not do it right. There was a paint brush given to count their sleeping bodies (so we were not going to use our fingers!), and my lab partner and I came up with this ingenious idea to dip the brush into ether, and paint it on the flies to put them under general anesthesia. Unfortunately, we probably ended up knocking all of them out, for good. *Murderer!* Oops, it was really unintentional.
There are some other interesting human gene names listed too, like sonic the hedgehog. Check it out!
Source: Clever name genes
