HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee
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| Description | HGNC is responsible for approving unique symbols and names for human loci, including protein coding genes, RNA genes and pseudogenes, to allow unambiguous scientific communication. |
| Data types captured |
Gene nomenclature |
| Organisms | Human |
| Contact | |
| Research center | EMBL-EBI, UK; |
| Primary citation | Gray & al. (2015) |
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| Website |
www www |
| Download URL |
www www www |
| Web service URL | rest |
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| Web |
www |
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| Curation policy | Yes |
The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) is a committee of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) that sets the standards for human gene nomenclature. The HGNC approves a unique and meaningful name for every known human gene, based on a query of experts. In addition to the name, which is usually 1 to 10 words long, the HGNC also assigns a symbol (a short group of characters) to every gene. As with an SI symbol, a gene symbol is like an abbreviation but is more than that, being a second unique name that can stand on its own just as much as substitute for the longer name. It may not necessarily "stand for" the initials of the name, although many gene symbols do reflect that origin.
Especially gene abbreviations/symbols but also full gene names are often not specific for a single gene. A marked example is CAP which can refer to any of 6 different genes (BRD4, CAP1, LNPEP, PTPLA, SERPINB6, and SORBS1).
The HGNC short gene names, or gene symbols, unlike previously used or published symbols, are specifically assigned to one gene only. This can result in less common abbreviations being selected but reduces confusion as to which gene is referred to.
The HGNC summarises its approach to naming genes and assigning symbols (gene name abbreviations) as follows:
The full description of HGNC's nomenclature guidelines can be found on their web site [1]. HGNC advocates the appendices _v1, _v2,.. to distinguish between different splice variants and _pr1, _pr2,.. for promoter variants of a single gene.
HGNC also states that "gene nomenclature should evolve with new technology rather than be restrictive as sometimes occurs when historical and single gene nomenclature systems are applied."
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