One gene, one name and the standard gene nomenclature

Model Organism: Worms Scientific Discussion
1

We as a community should strive for clarity. It really makes reading about some exciting new discoveries unnecessarily confusing, especially for those new to a specific field. Though not as bad as finding out dpy-1059342947 is actually dpy-10, here appears to be some recent examples where the non-standard ‘junior synonyms’ were used front-and-centre in publications:

Locus R06A4.2, accepted common name tebp-1, non-standard ‘junior synonym’ dtn-1.
Locus T12E12.3, accepted common name tebp-2, non-standard ‘junior synonym’ dtn-2.
Locus C38D4.4, accepted common name mip-1, non-standard ‘junior synonym’ eggd-1.
Locus F58G11.3, accepted common name mip-2, non-standard ‘junior synonym’ eggd-2.

2

I suspect most people reading the WormBase Community Forum (and its Alliance successor) already know this and aren’t the problem, but no-one is supposed to use a gene name in print without first getting it approved, and obviously no-one is supposed to try to add a new name to an already-named gene.

It may be more useful to point out that the examples cited here are also an example of failed peer review, to remind users of this forum that this is a thing they should look out for when reviewing a manuscript. I’ve caught it before, and I think getting the authors to correct that prior to publication not only saved the literature some confusion but also avoided embarrassment for the authors.