Please ensure that the gene and protein terms used throughout your article adhere to the guidelines provided below.
Official gene symbols
Official NCBI Gene full names and symbols are preferred, although “Other Aliases” will be accepted. The Editors acknowledge that exceptions to these guidelines exist, and these will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Do not use
Superscripts or subscripts (e.g., CB1, not CB1 or CB1)
Hyphens (e.g., TNFA, not TNF-A); an exception is Caenorhabditis elegans gene symbols
Greek letters: revise as Latin alphabet equivalents (e.g., TNFA, not TNFα; PPARG, not PPARγ)
Roman numerals: revise as Arabic numerals (e.g., ABCG1, not ABCGI)
Italicization
Do italicize
Gene symbols (e.g., PPARG)
Genotypes (e.g., PPARG–/–)
mRNAs (e.g., PPARG mRNA)
cDNAs
Do not italicize
Gene names (e.g., “the peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor γ gene”)
Gene products (e.g., “the gene encoding PPARγ”)
Phenotypes
Capitalization
Capitalization of gene and protein symbols should be styled according to species. For example,
Humans and non-human primates:
Full name: peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor γ
Gene symbol: PPARG
Protein symbol: PPARγ
Mice and rats:
Full name: peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor γ
Gene symbol: Pparg
Protein symbol: PPARγ
Note that full names of genes and proteins start with a lower-case letter unless they begin with a person’s name (describing a disease/phenotype) or a capitalized abbreviation.
