I have thought seriously about nomenclature for the proteins that have alternately been referred to as ADAMs, MDCs (with either Roman or Arabic numbers), cellular disintegrins, metalloprotease-disintegrins, and disintegrin-metalloproteases. I favor the name ADAM for a variety of reasons which I am happy to share with individuals if interested. However, I am open to others using their preferred names. In an attempt to minimize confusion about this gene family, which grew at a staggering rate, we have, over the recent years, published a Table of ADAMs in a variety of review articles. In these Tables we have numbered the ADAMs sequentially, as they became available to the public. We have always included alternate names in our Tables. We have recently put an updated version of this Table on the WWW. The Table will be updated monthly and can be accessed from http://www.med.virginia.edu/~jag6n/whitelab.html
I therefore favor a nomenclature of using either only the ADAM name and number or, if desired by individual investigators, using a nomenclature such as ADAM1/fertilin alpha or ADAM 17/TACE or ADAM 9/MDC9.
I welcome feedback and discussion.
NC's Reply:
We need to establish a single stem symbol which we can use for all the family members. It is not possible to use a combined symbol, such as suggested above, as the symbol needs to reflect the name and the use of punctuation does not conform with our guidelines. Those symbols which are currently approved in the database (shown in red) may remain as such if the authors prefer, but would be assigned appropriate aliases to show their membership of this gene family. However, all other genes should have the same stem symbol to facilitate the search and retrieval of information.
In view of Dr. Wain's comment (above), I favor the stem symbol ADAM.
I would like to vote for the stem symbol of "ADAM". I admit that I have my own personal reasons for preferring ADAM to MDC. However, I think there are strong scientific reasons as well, the most important being the confusion in the MDC numbering system. For example, there are 2 MDC 2's (tMDCII is ADAM 5, while MDC 2 is ADAM 22) and 2 MDC 3's (tMDCIII is ADAM 18 while MDC 3 is ADAM 23) (see http://www.med.virginia.edu/~jag6n/adams.html). Judy White and I have been trying to maintain a consistent ADAM numbering system since we published the first paper using that name in 1995. We have continued to try to coordinate the numbering system since that time, and some of the other researchers on your list have turned to us before naming their new genes.
I will defer to Judy White on the nomenclature issue.
In my lab we have been referring to metalloprotease-disintegrins as MDC proteins since 1994. We began using this term shortly after publishing the first paper that clearly established the existence of a family of cellular proteins related to snake venom disintegrins in PNAS early 1994 (Weskamp and Blobel, PNAS, 91: 2748-2751). Since then, we have used the MDC nomenclature in all publications (MDC9, 11a, 11b, 13, 15, 16, 19). For historical purposes it should be noted that this term was first used in 1993 by Emi et al. (Nature Genetics 5:151-157). As outlined in Dr. White's response, we and others in the field have coordinated the numbers of newly reported family members with the numbers in the ADAM nomenclature proposed by Drs. White and Wolfsberg, and we always refer to the name ADAM in the introduction. For the purpose of defining a common stem for this protein family in the human genome nomenclature, I therefore do not object to the use of the term ADAM. The only drawback of universally using the stem ADAM followed by a number is that it will be difficult for people outside the field to distinguish between different genes or proteins by number only. Therefore I think it will be useful to also continue using aliases given in the first description of certain proteins, such as meltrin a and b, KUZ, MDC9 and MDC15, or that refer to a function (fertilin, TACE). The common stem (ADAM + number) could then be mentioned in the title or abstract of a paper.
I was certainly interested to see that somebody was getting to grips with the ADAM nomenclature. However I should point out that in the list that you describe MCMP is noted as ADAM12. We called this ADAM12 when we identified it since this was the next in line and little information was available about the others. However I now think I am safe in saying that this is very similar to MDC9 (one small insertion difference) and therefore should probably be ADAM9. It certainly is different from meltrin.
I appreciate the pains you have taken to decide the gene symbols. Please mount my comments on your page. I named the genes MDC2 and MDC3 because I thought that the MDC/ADAM11, MDC2(ADAM22) and MDC3(ADAM23) could be grouped as a brain-derived cellular disintegrin sub-family. I am very sorry for causing the confusion described above.
Last updated: Friday 15 June 2001