HGNC
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HGNC branches out into plant gene naming
HGNC ·
Over the years HGNC has been approached several times with requests for help in naming genes in various species, including plant genes. While we always want to help, plants have been beyond the remit of our funding so we were limited to offering very general advice. However, the latest...
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Autumn newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
HGNC members on sabbatical
Undoubtedly any of our readers who are involved in producing online resources for the biomedical community are aware of the difficulties in securing funding for these kind of crucial resources, even for those of us who have been recognised as a Global Core...
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Summer newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
HGNC is on the move…
Later in the year, the HGNC team will be moving from our current office within EMBL-EBI in Hinxton to the University of Cambridge Haematology Department on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Several members of the HGNC team are already employees...
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Spring newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
Farewell to Liora
We are sad to say that we had to say farewell to one of our curators, Liora, back in March but we are pleased that she has a new role within EMBL-EBI with the Gene Expression team. We would like to thank Liora...
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Solute Carriers
HGNC, VGNC ·
Solute carriers: You asked, we listened!
The solute carrier (SLC) genes encode a diverse set of transmembrane proteins that transport a whole range of molecules including sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, inorganic ions and drugs. This is not a standard gene family but a very large group of over...
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Winter newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
HGNC is recognised as a Global Core Biodata Resource (GCBR)
We are delighted to announce that we have been included in the list of Global Core Biodata Resources (GCBRs) by the Global Biodata Coalition (GBC). This recognises us as a resource that is “crucial for sustaining...
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The Global Biodata Coalition
HGNC ·
Have you spotted the new logo in the footer of our website yet? We recently applied to be recognized by the Global Biodata Coalition as a core biodata resource, and are very pleased to have been accepted.
The Global Core Biodata Resources (GCBRs) have been identified as key...
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A Genetic Link to Tolerating the Cold
HGNC ·
Photo: Wellcome Genome Campus in the snow this December, Hinxton UK
ACTN3 Variants and Tolerance to Cold Temperatures
Although some of us may be dreaming of a white Christmas, others are piling on the blankets to keep warm as energy prices continue to skyrocket. We all know...
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AlphaFold - an AI tool for protein structure prediction
HGNC ·
AlphaFold and Placeholder Symbols
Alphafold uses artificial intelligence to predict the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences. The system was developed as a collaboration between DeepMind and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI).
The HGNC are currently looking into using AlphaFold as...
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Summer newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
Globus file transfer
The HGNC now provides a shared Globus endport for HGNC data. Globus is a non-profit service for secure, reliable research data management and transfer. Transferring files via Globus is quick and is not affected by network glitches that may corrupt the transferred file....
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HGNC Interaction with Patient Groups
HGNC ·
Increasing HGNC Interaction with Patient Groups
The HGNC is keen to engage with patient groups when possible, as their input can help us to assign meaningful, functionally informative and importantly, non-pejorative gene nomenclature.
Discussions with The Barth Syndrome Foundation
We have discussed the nomenclature update for
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Gene Curation Coalition Flagship Paper
HGNC ·
We are excited to announce the paper describing the Gene Curation Coalition (GenCC)’s global effort to harmonise gene–disease evidence resources is now published in Genetics in Medicine (available via this link until June 23rd 2022).
Gencc.org gathers gene-disease associations from many sources
Figuring out which genes to...
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Spring newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
Farewell to Beth
After 9 years of working with us, we have had to say goodbye to Beth Yates, our first developer for the VGNC project. We would like to thank Beth for all of her hard work in setting up the VGNC website, vertebrate.genenames.org, as well...
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Gene Group Jamboree 2022
HGNC ·
Photo: Springtime daffodils
The HGNC curators recently held a two day “gene group jamboree” where we reviewed our existing gene group resource and thought about how we can make it even more useful to researchers in future. There are currently 1642 gene groups that have all been...
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Naming Dynein Components and their Cytoplasmic Assembly Factors
HGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Stephen M. King, one of our specialist advisors for nomenclature of dyneins and their cytoplasmic assembly factors.
Figure 1 from Braschi et al., 2022 (a) The cytoplasmic dynein 1 complex. The DYNC1H1 protein heavy chains have large...
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The risks of using unapproved gene symbols
HGNC ·
Does it really matter if researchers choose to use their favourite aliases to refer to genes in their manuscripts instead of using their HGNC approved symbols? Sadly, the use of unapproved aliases can not only cause confusion and wasted experiments in the laboratory, but even more worryingly, confusion in...
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Stability in the time of COVID-19
HGNC ·
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an ongoing pandemic caused by a new form of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), has dominated the news for the past 18 months and still influences our lives in many aspects.
International research on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 molecular biology is...
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Introducing our new curator
HGNC ·
Tel-Aviv beach, Israel
My name is Liora Vilmovsky and I’m a new Gene Nomenclature Advisor at the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) team at EMBL-EBI. My new role with the HGNC is focused on stabilising symbols for clinically relevant genes.
...Naming genes in the mitochondrial genome
HGNC ·
Figure reproduced from Shololenko and Alexeyev, 2015 with permission from M. Alexeyev (PMID: 26071375).
Mitochondria are vital for cellular energy and these mini power stations require the coordinated effort of over 1000 proteins (PMID:20690818). While the majority of these are encoded by genes within the nuclear genome,...
Transcripts Are The Mane Attraction
HGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Jane Loveland who works in the Ensembl-Havana gene annotation group who are long term collaborators of the HGNC.
New and improved HGNC search available on beta.genenames.org
HGNC, Search ·
'I know the gene symbol begins with MAP ... Ah got it!' Over the past few years we have collated user feedback about our current HGNC search. We have listened to suggestions on how we could improve...
Naming Pseudogenes
HGNC ·
In amongst the functional genes encoding proteins, the human genome contains a myriad of non-functional gene copies and gene fragments – known as pseudogenes. By naming these pseudogenes we help to reveal their relationships to their functional gene relatives, and to ‘label’ the genome more fully . However,...
New Guidelines 2020
HGNC ·
A closer look at our more recent HGNC guideline updates
The last blog post featured our Summer Newsletter, and we discussed some of the issues brought up in our Nature Genetics comment article on our guidelines including mention of our solution for the “Excel auto-changing...
WFH - a day in the life of two of our curators
HGNC, VGNC ·
Ruth’s day
Thursday morning - the second ‘proper’ working day of the week for me as I work part-time. I have two sons, one aged 7 and the other aged 4, neither of whom have anywhere to go currently during my working week. At least I don’t have...
Spring newsletter 2020
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
HGNC are working from home
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) on the Wellcome Genome Campus in Hinxton where the main HGNC office is located has been closed since Wednesday 18th March, so we have all been working from home for over 2 months and counting. Although we...
Naming olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post ·
This month we are celebrating the publication of our work on a new naming system for olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates. This work was done in collaboration with olfactory receptor experts at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Tsviya Olender and Doron Lancet, and...
HCOP: the HGNC Comparison of Orthology Predictions tool
HGNC, HCOP ·
While most of you will mainly be interested in human genes, did you know that we also provide an easy way to find orthologs (equivalent genes in another species) of human genes using our HCOP (HGNC Comparison of Orthology Predictions) tool?
HCOP brings together data for 19...
Multi-symbol checker tool - does your paper use HGNC approved symbols?
HGNC ·
Check your nomenclature pre-publication
We realise that many of our users will come to our website and simply use our main search box. But did you know that we also have a tool that allows you to upload a large list of symbols and lets you know whether...
Stable symbols - improving scientific communication long-term
HGNC, TGMI ·
Why should gene symbols be stable?
Wherever possible we avoid changing gene symbols, but occasionally this is necessary, as we described in our last post. In this post we explain how we have progressed from simply avoiding symbol changes to assessing if some gene symbols are likely...
Minimising Changes - why do we ever change gene symbols?
HGNC ·
We avoid changing HGNC approved gene symbols unless there are very good reasons to do so. We appreciate that change can be disruptive, but sometimes it’s also necessary. This blog post will explain why we make changes to gene symbols and give some examples of changes that we’ve made...
Summer newsletter 2019
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters ·
The HGNC is 40!
We are excited to announce a significant birthday for the HGNC – it is now 40 years since the first full human gene nomenclature guidelines were published, following discussions at the 1979 Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. We are proud to be able...
Seeing Red
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post ·
This guest blog post was written by David Nelson, one of our external advisors who specializes in the biology of the cytochrome P450s. David is a Professor at the University of Tennessee and has been studying the evolutionary history of cytochrome P450s in species from across the...
Welcome to the Genenames Blog for the HGNC and the VGNC
HGNC, VGNC ·We are the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee and our job is to make sure that scientists have a common language to use when discussing genes. We approve unique symbols and names for human loci, including protein coding genes, ncRNA genes and pseudogenes, to allow unambiguous scientific communication.
VGNC
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Autumn newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC members on sabbatical
Undoubtedly any of our readers who are involved in producing online resources for the biomedical community are aware of the difficulties in securing funding for these kind of crucial resources, even for those of us who have been recognised as a Global Core...
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Summer newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC is on the move…
Later in the year, the HGNC team will be moving from our current office within EMBL-EBI in Hinxton to the University of Cambridge Haematology Department on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Several members of the HGNC team are already employees...
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The Evolution of "Sunscreen genes"
VGNC ·
Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik
This guest blog post has been contributed by Fiona McCarthy from the University of Arizona, a past member of our
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Spring newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Farewell to Liora
We are sad to say that we had to say farewell to one of our curators, Liora, back in March but we are pleased that she has a new role within EMBL-EBI with the Gene Expression team. We would like to thank Liora...
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Solute Carriers
HGNC, VGNC · Solute carriers: You asked, we listened!
The solute carrier (SLC) genes encode a diverse set of transmembrane proteins that transport a whole range of molecules including sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, inorganic ions and drugs. This is not a standard gene family but a very large group of over...
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Winter newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC is recognised as a Global Core Biodata Resource (GCBR)
We are delighted to announce that we have been included in the list of Global Core Biodata Resources (GCBRs) by the Global Biodata Coalition (GBC). This recognises us as a resource that is “crucial for sustaining...
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A Debate About Vertebrate Gene Naming
VGNC ·
Figure 1. A summary of the gene nomenclature for the AVPR2 subfamily agreed across the vertebrate nomenclature committees.
Gene nomenclature is an essential aspect of scientific communication in biology, and has multiple functions. A gene name ideally tells us something about the gene or gene product; this might be...
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Summer newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Globus file transfer
The HGNC now provides a shared Globus endport for HGNC data. Globus is a non-profit service for secure, reliable research data management and transfer. Transferring files via Globus is quick and is not affected by network glitches that may corrupt the transferred file....
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Spring newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Farewell to Beth
After 9 years of working with us, we have had to say goodbye to Beth Yates, our first developer for the VGNC project. We would like to thank Beth for all of her hard work in setting up the VGNC website, vertebrate.genenames.org, as well...
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Aristotle’s hen house
VGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Fiona McCarthy, a member of our Scientific Advisory board.
While today chickens are perhaps best known as the key ingredient in tikka masala, they have been used since 335 BCE to understand how life is created and formed....
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WFH - a day in the life of two of our curators
HGNC, VGNC · Ruth’s day
Thursday morning - the second ‘proper’ working day of the week for me as I work part-time. I have two sons, one aged 7 and the other aged 4, neither of whom have anywhere to go currently during my working week. At least I don’t have...
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Spring newsletter 2020
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC are working from home
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) on the Wellcome Genome Campus in Hinxton where the main HGNC office is located has been closed since Wednesday 18th March, so we have all been working from home for over 2 months and counting. Although we...
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Naming olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post · This month we are celebrating the publication of our work on a new naming system for olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates. This work was done in collaboration with olfactory receptor experts at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Tsviya Olender and Doron Lancet, and...
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New year, new VGNC species!
VGNC ·
As we welcome in the new year we will also soon be bidding farewell to the Chinese year of the pig, so to mark this we are excited to announce that we are adding the domestic pig to our VGNC resource!
The VGNC database provides official gene...
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Summer newsletter 2019
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · The HGNC is 40!
We are excited to announce a significant birthday for the HGNC – it is now 40 years since the first full human gene nomenclature guidelines were published, following discussions at the 1979 Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. We are proud to be able...
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Seeing Red
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post · This guest blog post was written by David Nelson, one of our external advisors who specializes in the biology of the cytochrome P450s. David is a Professor at the University of Tennessee and has been studying the evolutionary history of cytochrome P450s in species from across the...
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Introducing the VGNC
VGNC ·
Welcome back to the Genenames blog - this time we’re going to begin discussing our VGNC project, established in 2016 as an extension of the HGNC.
The Vertebrate Gene Nomenclature Committee (VGNC) assigns standardized nomenclature for vertebrate species that lack their own nomenclature committees.
To ensure that genes...
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Welcome to the Genenames Blog for the HGNC and the VGNC
HGNC, VGNC ·We are the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee and our job is to make sure that scientists have a common language to use when discussing genes. We approve unique symbols and names for human loci, including protein coding genes, ncRNA genes and pseudogenes, to allow unambiguous scientific communication.
Newsletters
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Autumn newsletter 2024
Newsletters ·
HGNC is funded for another 5 years!
We have had a testing time in the last year, as anyone who follows the HGNC will be aware and have been reliant on bridge funding. We are therefore delighted to announce that we have been awarded funding from the
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Autumn newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC members on sabbatical
Undoubtedly any of our readers who are involved in producing online resources for the biomedical community are aware of the difficulties in securing funding for these kind of crucial resources, even for those of us who have been recognised as a Global Core...
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Summer newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC is on the move…
Later in the year, the HGNC team will be moving from our current office within EMBL-EBI in Hinxton to the University of Cambridge Haematology Department on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Several members of the HGNC team are already employees...
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Spring newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Farewell to Liora
We are sad to say that we had to say farewell to one of our curators, Liora, back in March but we are pleased that she has a new role within EMBL-EBI with the Gene Expression team. We would like to thank Liora...
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Winter newsletter 2023
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC is recognised as a Global Core Biodata Resource (GCBR)
We are delighted to announce that we have been included in the list of Global Core Biodata Resources (GCBRs) by the Global Biodata Coalition (GBC). This recognises us as a resource that is “crucial for sustaining...
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Autumn newsletter 2022
Newsletters ·
New REST API
We are excited to announce that we have expanded our REST API so that you can now query both HGNC and VGNC data! The genenames.org REST web-service is a convenient and quick way of searching and fetching data from our database within...
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Summer newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Globus file transfer
The HGNC now provides a shared Globus endport for HGNC data. Globus is a non-profit service for secure, reliable research data management and transfer. Transferring files via Globus is quick and is not affected by network glitches that may corrupt the transferred file....
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Spring newsletter 2022
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · Farewell to Beth
After 9 years of working with us, we have had to say goodbye to Beth Yates, our first developer for the VGNC project. We would like to thank Beth for all of her hard work in setting up the VGNC website, vertebrate.genenames.org, as well...
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Winter newsletter 2022
Newsletters ·
Thanks to our Scientific Advisory Board
We would like to thank all the members of our SAB for attending our (mostly virtual) annual meeting from 27-28th January. We hope that we might be able to host a less virtual version in the future! We were pleased to...
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Autumn newsletter 2021
Newsletters ·
New links to GenCC
We are pleased to announce that HGNC now displays links from our Symbol Reports to curated gene-disease relationships in the GenCC (The Gene Curation Coalition) database. The HGNC is a member of the GenCC project that brings together multiple groups that are...
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Summer newsletter 2021
Newsletters ·
Dinas Dinlle beach, Wales
Welcome to Liora!
We are delighted to introduce our new curator, Liora Vilmovsky, who has joined us to work primarily on our project to stabilise symbols for clinically relevant genes. You can read Liora’s post on our blog site to learn...
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Spring newsletter 2021
Newsletters ·
New HGNC search application is live!
Readers of the Winter newsletter will remember being asked to test the beta version of our improved search. Thanks so much to all who did this and provided us with feedback. On April 1st we switched over to this new search on...
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Winter newsletter 2021
Newsletters ·
Credit: Dr Susan Tweedie “Snowdrops at the HGNC outpost in Minto Glen”
Beta version of new genenames.org search released
Earlier this month, we released a beta version of an improved search for genenames.org. The main improvements compared to our current search are as follows:
- One search...
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Autumn newsletter 2020
Newsletters ·
Coming soon - an improved search for genenames.org
We are excited to announce that we are finalising a new version of the search engine for genenames.org. The look and feel will not significantly change but the search will feature an autosuggest function which will let the user...
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Summer newsletter 2020
Newsletters ·
Fewer changes, other species, and no more dates – the new HGNC guidelines have been released!
We are delighted to announce that we have published a comment article about updates to our nomenclature guidelines. The citation in Nature Genetics can be viewed in the ‘Publications’ section below. A...
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Spring newsletter 2020
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · HGNC are working from home
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) on the Wellcome Genome Campus in Hinxton where the main HGNC office is located has been closed since Wednesday 18th March, so we have all been working from home for over 2 months and counting. Although we...
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Winter newsletter 2020
Newsletters ·
Pig genes now in VGNC
We are pleased to announce that one of our first major achievements of 2020 is the addition of domestic pig genes to our VGNC resource! We had long been interested in adding pig due to its medical and economic relevance, but previous...
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Autumn newsletter 2019
Newsletters ·
Thanks to our Scientific Advisory Board
We would like to thank all the members of our SAB for attending our annual meeting, held here at EMBL-EBI from 7-8 November. We were pleased to welcome two new board members: Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the Arthur Balfour Professor...
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Summer newsletter 2019
HGNC, VGNC, Newsletters · The HGNC is 40!
We are excited to announce a significant birthday for the HGNC – it is now 40 years since the first full human gene nomenclature guidelines were published, following discussions at the 1979 Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. We are proud to be able...
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Spring newsletter 2019
Newsletters ·
Welcome to the new format newsletter
Welcome to the first HGNC newsletter published on our brand new HGNC and VGNC blog! The blog was launched on April 1st, 2019 and this forms our second ever post. Aside from publishing our newsletters, we will use this blog to highlight...
Guest Post
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Naming Dynein Components and their Cytoplasmic Assembly Factors
HGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Stephen M. King, one of our specialist advisors for nomenclature of dyneins and their cytoplasmic assembly factors.
Figure 1 from Braschi et al., 2022 (a) The cytoplasmic dynein 1 complex. The DYNC1H1 protein heavy chains have large...
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Taking the wider perspective - the value of gene groups
Guest Post ·
This guest blog post has been contributed by Steven Marygold, the manager/coordinator of the FlyBase group based at the University of Cambridge.He advises on Drosophila gene nomenclature, oversees the FlyBase Gene Group resource, and coordinates FlyBase data exchange with other databases including the HGNC, the...Transcripts Are The Mane Attraction
HGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Jane Loveland who works in the Ensembl-Havana gene annotation group who are long term collaborators of the HGNC.
Aristotle’s hen house
VGNC, Guest Post ·This guest blog post has been contributed by Fiona McCarthy, a member of our Scientific Advisory board.
While today chickens are perhaps best known as the key ingredient in tikka masala, they have been used since 335 BCE to understand how life is created and formed....
Naming olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post · This month we are celebrating the publication of our work on a new naming system for olfactory receptor genes in vertebrates. This work was done in collaboration with olfactory receptor experts at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Tsviya Olender and Doron Lancet, and...
Seeing Red
HGNC, VGNC, Guest Post · This guest blog post was written by David Nelson, one of our external advisors who specializes in the biology of the cytochrome P450s. David is a Professor at the University of Tennessee and has been studying the evolutionary history of cytochrome P450s in species from across the...
TGMI
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Stable symbols - improving scientific communication long-term
HGNC, TGMI · Why should gene symbols be stable?
Wherever possible we avoid changing gene symbols, but occasionally this is necessary, as we described in our last post. In this post we explain how we have progressed from simply avoiding symbol changes to assessing if some gene symbols are likely...
HCOP
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HCOP: the HGNC Comparison of Orthology Predictions tool
HGNC, HCOP · While most of you will mainly be interested in human genes, did you know that we also provide an easy way to find orthologs (equivalent genes in another species) of human genes using our HCOP (HGNC Comparison of Orthology Predictions) tool?
HCOP brings together data for 19...
Search
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New and improved HGNC search available on beta.genenames.org
HGNC, Search · 'I know the gene symbol begins with MAP ... Ah got it!' Over the past few years we have collated user feedback about our current HGNC search. We have listened to suggestions on how we could improve...