The Epigenetics Revolution

Notes on nomenclature

There is an international convention on the way that the names of genes and proteins are written, which we adhere to in this book.

Gene names and symbols are written in italics. The proteins encoded by the genes are written in plain text.

The symbols for human genes and proteins are written in upper case. For other species, such as mice, the symbols are usually written with only the first letter capitalised.

This is summarised for a hypothetical gene in the following table.

Like all rules, however, there are a few quirks in this system and while these conventions apply in general we will encounter some exceptions in this book.