VGNC: The Vertebrate Gene Nomenclature Committee

Standardised gene nomenclature provides an essential resource for all researchers. The Vertebrate Gene Nomenclature Committee (VGNC) is a new initiative that extends the remit of the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), who provide approved gene symbols and names for all human genes, to approve gene names and symbols across vertebrate species without an established gene nomenclature group. Our naming strategy for each species starts by identifying a high confidence set of genes with 1:1 human orthologs using our HCOP tool (www.genenames.org/cgi-bin/hcop), which aggregates orthology predictions from multiple sources. These 1:1 orthologs are named in a semi-automated manner, with the HGNC's human gene nomenclature being transferred to the orthologous gene. Genes with non-consensus orthologs, members of complex gene families, pseudogenes and RNA genes require additional manual curation. Our prototype species for VGNC naming has been chimpanzee and we have already named over 14K protein-coding chimp genes with a 1:1 human ortholog. During this process we have taken the opportunity to improve the consistency of our gene names and taken care to minimise transfer of species-specific information. This naming will soon be expanded to other species, including dog and cow. An online vertebrate gene nomenclature portal has been created at vertebrate.genenames.org that stores, displays and makes this new nomenclature data accessible both to individual researchers and available for dissemination to other resources including Ensembl and NCBI Gene, where the VGNC gene symbols and names are also displayed. This presentation will discuss the work of the VGNC to date and our plans for the future of vertebrate gene naming.