me, an intellectual:\u00a0makes caterpillars floppy
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Some other choice gene names include:
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snail
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oskar
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cactus
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sonic hedgehog
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Some more of my favorite genes:
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Cleopatra (interacts with the Asp gene!)
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Julius seizure (does NOT interact with cleopatra, unfortunately. Causes seizures)
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Cheap Date (increases alcohol sensitivity)
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Ken and Barbie (causes loss of external genitalia)
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Also, the hox genes, like antennapedia. Not a particularly funny name, but if you mutant antennapedia flys grow legs where their antennae should be.
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IT
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KEEPS
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GETTING
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BETTER
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Some others fun ones:
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The sonic hedgehog gene has a signal inhibitor called robotnikinin.
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The halloween genes, a gene complex composed of spook, spookier, shadow, shade, shroud and phantom. Tampering with this one fucks up the exoskeleton development of fruit flies and makes them freaky looking among other things, so the name is apt.
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Tinman (mutations prevent the development of a heart, \u00e0 la the Tin Man from Oz)
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Flippase and floppase (a pair of proteins that pass phosphatidylserines\u00a0back and forth across the outer side of the cell membrane)
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MAP kinase, MAP kinase kinase etc. This stacks four times to result in MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase
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Mothers against decapentaplegic (represses the decapentaplegic gene in the embryo if it\u2019s mutated in the mother).
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Fun fact, there\u2019s a hedgehog gene, and Indian hedgehog gene, and a sonic hedgehog gene
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Also, the sonic hedgehog gene has expression that gets messed up my some chemicals (including alcohol) during pregnancy. So this leads to doctors having to explain to patient the something is wrong with their sonic hedgehog gene.\u00a0
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There\u2019s actually a really good reason for these funny names though! Aside from scientists being dorks. Because if you discover a gene that is expressed wrong during cancer, and call it lung cancer gene 1, later on you might discover that it\u2019s normal function is to make brain cells or something. That\u2019s a problem, because it\u2019ll forever bias research into that gene, because people will assume its a cancer gene, rather than playing multiple important roles in different pathways. Funny names, or naming the gene after the phenotype (the physical appearance of individuals with mutations in the gene), avoid this problem!
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Naming the gene after the phenotype?
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Well\u2026 this is what the hedgehog gene does to fruit flies, which is the species it was discovered in.
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It. Literally makes the fly larvae look like hedgehogs.\u00a0
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This is why\u00a0\n\n makes caterpillars floppy is called that! The authors Did A Good And Funny, and more importantly, other scientists aren\u2019t going to look at that gene in the database and assume we already know everything about its function. Other scientists are going to look at that gene and go\u00a0\u201cfloppy lol\u201d.
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So what have we learned today? Scientists giving genes funny names and other scientists going \u201cfloppy lol\u201d actually serves an important role in keeping scientists from missing crucial research by assuming they know everything already. Every time you think science can\u2019t get any more amazing it\u2026 just\u2026 does.
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(admittedly though, some funny name genes do stand for their functions. Pokemon stands for \u201cPOKerythroid\u00a0myeloid\u00a0ontogenic factor\u201d and diablo stands for \u201cDirect\u00a0IAP\u00a0binding protein,\u00a0low\u201d.)
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I worked with zebra fish and I really enjoyed the Santa Claus, Valentine\u2019s, and heart of glass genes (all mess up heart development), and my absolute favourite - sonic hedgehog only acts on anterior midline seperation in d. rerio, there\u2019s an analogue gene that handles posterior midline separation, and it is called tiggywinkle hedgehog.
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as in Mrs Tiggywinkle, the hedgehog from the Beatrix Potter books.
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it is very hard to present research findings with a straight face when they include this.
They learnt the hard way from the immunologists not to try and do things in any systematic, numerical way because biology inevitably ends up screwing over your nice, orderly system. Hence the reason why the three most important activated helper T cell phenotypes are Th1, Th2 and Th17.
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Ahem
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There was a considerable movement to name top and bottom instead truth and beauty, which would have really enhanced the whimsical naming scheme.
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