Subject: Fwd: Re: gelded naming
Kathy Matthews:
Below is a message from Steve Wasserman indicating that he feels it makes
more sense for his original allele of gel to be a basigin allele than the
other way around. This rationale is based on the fact that a transcript
and protein have been shown to be basigin. He is in favor of changing the
name and for retaining gel as the designation of an allele for basigin.
Kathy Curtin
>Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005  14:01:53  \-0800
>
>Kathy \-
>
>I think the reasons for sticking with historical names are solid, but not
>in all cases. It is not as if there were a lot of work that would be
>thrown into confusion. In some ways I prefer the opposite solution to what
>you propose. Faint little balls and Torpedo are now alleles of EGFR, not
>the other way around. Gelded is a mutation, not a gene, and Basigin is a
>gene, not a mutation. However, whatever causes you the least problems now
>and for the future sounds like a good solution to me.
>
>- Steve
Subject: CG31605/basigin/gelded
Dear Kathy,
This is just a brief note to let you know that I support Kathy Curtin's
suggestion of designating CG31605 as basigin (symbol: bsg) and not gelded
(symbol: gel). I believe the genetic arguments have been laid out by Kathy
(Df removing CG31605 complements gel1), and that Steve Wasserman has also
indicated that the assignment of gelded as the transcript associated with
CG31605 (by the genome project) is questionable. I have found that various
P element insertions in the vicinity of CG31605 show complex
geneticcomplementation. Some of my comments already appear as a
personal communication to flybase in the listing for gel. If future
fine structure mapping of this locus proves gelded to, in fact, be a male
sterile allele of CG31605, perhaps the name gelded could be retained as an
allele designation (gel1 = bsggelded?
As Kathy points out, and to which I agree, the literature on
basigin is certainly already bogged down by several different names and
it would be a shame for the Drosophila community to add yet another
complication by referring to the gene as 'gelded or CG31605' but the
protein as 'D-basigin'.
sincerely,
Bruce Reed