Should potentially offensive gene
names be changed?

How would you feel if you were told you carried a mutation in the gene ‘Lunatic Fringe homolog (Drosophila)'? Two percent of human genes are named based on their known ortholog or paralog in Drosophila; some of these Drosophila genes have whimsical names such as "lunatic fringe". The nomenclature guidelines⁽¹⁾ have for many years stated that symbols should not be offensive. There is currently no specific instruction about names, although in practice this is certainly considered when new names and symbols are approved, including (as far as we know) the avoidance of symbols that are offensive in other languages.

Recently, correspondence in the American Journal of Medical Genetics has discussed a number of well-established approved names and symbols both for genes and for syndromes as being and have recently been ‘inappropriate, demeaning and pejorative' in humans^(2-4). The table shown here indicates the gene symbols and names which have been most criticised.

		Approx. times symbol used in PubMed
Gene Symbol	Gene Name	All Species	Human
LFNG	lunatic fringe homolog (Drosophila)	94	31
MFNG	manic fringe homolog (Drosophila)	29	24
RFNG	radical fringe homolog (Drosophila)	38	24
SHH	sonic hedgehog homolog (Drosophila)	1472	581
IHH	Indian Hedgehog homolog (Drosophila)	294	112

Of these, the easiest to change would be those in the fringe series, bearing in mind that the function of the proteins coded by the fringe genes are now known. They are all enzymes of the Notch pathway: O-fucose beta1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, elongates O-fucose on specific EGF repeats from Notch to form a disaccharide that can be further elongated to a tetrasaccharide.

So should potentially offensive gene names be changed? Please select which option you prefer from below and add any comments on this issue or suggestions for other genes we should consider.