In the world of genetics, there are two kinds of researchers- those who work with fruit flies, and those who work with worms. The worm scientists will discover a new gene and name it with a combination of letters and numbers. The fruit fly geneticists prefer to name a gene with something descriptive, starting with a gene discovered in 1910 in which a mutation gave a fly white eyes instead of the normal red. Thomas Hunt Morgan named it "White." Since then, genes have been named anything and everything, which can sometimes be way too cute, such as the name Hamlet, which affects the development of 2B cells, as in 2B or not 2B. There are also genes named Drop Dead and Male Chauvinist Pigmentation. But sometimes it goes too far, as a recent podcast illustrates.
ELAH FEDER: But we do have examples where people start to get really creative with the best of intentions, and it winds up creating some awkward situations, like this gene. In the late '70s, a pair of scientists were looking at mutations that affected development. So fruit-fly larvae have bristles on them, and they found this one mutation that caused the bristles to be all bunched together. And they thought, what does this bristly little creature look like? Let's call it Hedgehog.
THOM KAUFMAN: Perfectly descriptive of the mutant phenotype. Everything is fine. OK. But then they found that there were mutants in mites, and mice have four copies of this gene. And the mouse people got cute, so they started naming these extra copies and said, oh, there's one that's Hedgehog, then there's one we'll call Sonic Hedgehog after the cartoon character.
And there's another one called Desert Hedgehog and Indian Hedgehog to name all four of these things. There's also Tiggy Winkel Hedgehog and Echidna Hedgehog. OK. And people were just trying to be cute.
LAH FEDER: But humans have these genes, too.
THOM KAUFMAN: Well, then it was discovered that this gene caused a human disease that is a very bad thing for a child to inherit from its parents, holoprosencephaly. And when a child has this, and a doctor comes and says, oh, your child is mutant for the Sonic Hedgehog gene, well, it's not a joke to have a child with holoprosencephaly.
Another place where this is a problem is there's another mutation called Fringe. It was discovered in flies. And Fringe, again, has a mutant phenotype that's consistent with-- it's like Hedgehog. But then they discovered these extra copies of these genes, and they started getting cute. And so they called them Lunatic Fringe and so on.
And it starts to get a little over the top. And again, these things have human orthologs, which can be associated with bad genetic disorders in human beings. And so that's where things start getting a little dicey.
They also go over the twisted reasoning behind the genes named Clown, Van Gogh, Ken and Barbie, and more. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript here. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Sanjay Acharya)
#nomenclature #scientificname #genes #fruitfly #genetics
