GNAS2009 Abstract #4 - Westerfield, Monte

Nomenclature for zebrafish genes

Monte Westerfield, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403,
USA

Controlled vocabularies and standardized nomenclatures are important, not only for efficient and unambiguous communication within the research community but also to support database organization, querying, reasoning, and data mining. In 1992, the zebrafish research community recognized the importance of standardized nomenclature and appointed a committee to establish nomenclature guidelines and to provide advice for naming zebrafish genes and mutants. The current guidelines (http://zfin.org/zf_info/nomen.html) are based on input from the zebrafish research community and on the rules used for naming human and mouse genes. We work closely with the human and mouse nomenclature committees to coordinate genes names in all three species. Coordination has been and will continue to be essential for identifying orthologous genes, naming novel members of gene families, and revising groups of genes. Communication among the nomenclature committees has fostered stability of the nomenclature in all three species. We also work with committees and individuals with expertise in the nomenclature of particular groups of genes or gene families, and we ask their advice when naming new members or revising gene families. We encourage researchers to consult the committee before publishing new gene and mutant names. Researchers typically contact the committee by email, but can also
register new gene or mutant names in ZFIN using the gene and locus/line submission forms available on the ZFIN home page.
The current zebrafish nomenclature committee is: Marc Ekker (Ottawa Civic Hospital), Leyla Bayraktaroglu (ZFIN), Mary Mullins (University of Pennsylvania), John Postlethwait (University of Oregon), and Monte Westerfield (ZFIN).