ARABIDOPSIS RULES PROPOSED FOR TOMATO

"Third International Arabidopsis Meeting (East Lansing, USA, April 1987) a number of nomenclature rules have been recommended:

- Genotypes are italicized or underlined.       
        (same as tomato rule 3)

- The wild-type genotype is capitalized (e.g. CER1). 
        (Conflicts with tomato rule 4)

- The genotype of mutant alleles is lower case (e.g. cer1). 
        (Same as tomato rule 4 execpt it does not account 
         for identification of dominant mutants or 
         phenotypically different alleles)

- Alleles are specified by a dash followed by a number 
        (cer1-1, cer1-2) and if no allele is specified, it 
        is assumed to be number one.  (This is the notation 
        given for mimics in tomato - rule 6)

- All new gene symbols should be in three letters, which can
        be followed directly by a number in case different 
        genes (with a similar mutant phenotype) are described 
        (e.g. cer1, cer2).  (See tomato rule 3 - no special 
        restrictions beyond "appropriate name" are stated.  
        The numbering format suggested conflicts with rule 4 
        of tomato for alleles)

- Phenotypes are designated by the gene symbol , which is not 
        underlined but has the first letter capital (e.g. Cer).
        (Not specifically addressed in the tomato rules)

Of immediate concern is the absence of any procedure to identify dominant vs recessive alleles, and the fact that the nomenclature rules for mimics vs numbered alleles are exactly opposite in tomato vs Arabidopsis. The tomato rules predate those proposed for Arabidopsis by 21-32 years. Changing tomato rules at this point could cause confusion with symbols which are up to 60+ years old. What are your preferences?