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Environment
Standardize Nomenclature
February 8, 2010
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 88, Issue 6
The concentrate "Listerias Soften Cells for Infection" points out something I have realized for a long time: the need for a systematic nomenclature in protein chemistry and molecular biology (C&EN Sept. 28, 2009, page 58). In one paragraph, we find the names of three proteins: internalin C, Tuba, and N-WASP. These names are undoubtedly meaningful to the scientists working in this specific field, but to any other interested chemist, they convey exactly nothing. It is high time to do what organic chemists did long ago—dispense with the trivial and often cutesy names and institute a more rational system of naming.
By the way, among microbiologists the "tails" of bacteria are known as flagella.
Stanley Scheindlin
Philadelphia
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