Subject: Help FlyBase - strabismus
Hi Tanya,
I am curating an abstract of yours (S34) from the 16th International
Congress of Developmental Biology (published in Dev. Biol. 186(2)) for
FlyBase in which you discuss a new gene 'strabismus'. Unfortunately you
use the short symbol 'stb' for this gene and this has already been used for
'short bristle' by Fahmy in 1958!
Gerry is here at the moment (Uni. Camb) and he has suggested 'stab' as an
alternative symbol.
Are you happy with this?
As this is a new gene to FlyBase would you also be prepared to provide a
few more details that the abstract gave, namely:
the location (genetic or cytological) of strabismus
what does strabismus mean?
allele designation for the mutant described in the abstract
and anything else you would be prepared to declare!
Many thanks for your help,
Eleanor Whitfield
FlyBase
Subject: strabismus
Hi Eleanor,
Thank you for your email message. I was aware that stb had already been
used as an abbreviation for a mutant which, according to the red book, no
longer exists. I wasn't sure whether it was legitimate to use this
abbreviation or not, given there is no longer a mutant to go with the name,
and was going to check with Gerry before submitting a paper and making it
official, so I guess now I don't need to ask him! I would prefer to go with
'strb' as opposed to 'stab'. strb has been genetically mapped to 2-61 and
cytologically mapped to 45A-B. The allele described in the abstract is strb
6, and the definition of strabismus is : a disorder in vision due to a
deviation from normal orientation of one or both eyes; it is the medical
term for cross-eyed. If you have any further questions, please feel free
to ask.
Sincerely,
Tanya Wolff