A STANDARDIZED KINESIN NOMENCLATURE

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A STANDARDIZEDKINESIN NOMENCLATURE

• A subgroup preceding the 2003 ASCB meeting
• Organizer Carolyn Lawrence, MaizeGDB at Iowa
  State University

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Room, screen, projector, laser pointer, speaker
timer, and refreshments provided by
Cytoskeleton, Inc.
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Schedule

• Introduction to the problem
• Carolyn Lawrence
• Karen Christie
• Holly Goodson

• Current nomenclature usage and new systems
• Nobutaka Hirokawa
• Scott Dawson
• Carolyn Lawrence
• Manfred Schliwa (CL)
• Bill Saxton (CL)
• Jonathan Scholey

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Why are we here today?What prompted this
meeting?
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What are names based upon?

• Motor position
• Function
• Who came first (priority of publication)
• Arbitrary numbers or letters
• Phylogenetic relatedness of proteins
• (NB Nomenclature and classification are
  different but inseparable issues! )

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Motor Position

• MCAK (AKA I-Type or Kin I)
• C-terminal (here Kar3 and KIFC2)

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Function

• E.g., microtubule depolymerization (MCAK,
  Klp67a/Kip 3, Kar3/C-terminal)
• Can determination of function be arbitrarily or
  fairly decided?
• Must the function be conserved among all
  eukaryotes represented in the family in order to
  be the function chosen as the familys name?

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Who came first?(priority)

• First to be sequenced (as a full or partial
  clone)?
• First to be published (with or without sequence)?
• First to be functionally described in the
  literature (at what level expression only or at
  the protein level or what)?

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Why are we aimed at finding a family level
nomenclature?

• Each model organism already has its own rules of
  nomenclature, so sequences are out
• A kinesin from any organism can be referred to as
  a XXX kinesin family member
• Defining a nomenclature at the family level will
  affect nomenclature of individual sequences
  eventually

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This is not science!

• A unified nomenclature facilitates scientific
  communication, but is not science per se. Its
  more sort-of a necessary evil.
• What were doing here today is more akin to
  community service than to real science!