What's in a stupid name?
Surely one of the main attractions of becoming a practising scientist is being able to name your discoveries. In the past, these discoveries have tended to come in the form of new planets and species, but in this age of molecular biology they are more likely to be new genes and proteins.
So how do you go about naming your new protein? Do you show off your erudition by giving it a name that alludes to classical Roman or Greek culture? Do you show off your innate seriousness by giving it a wholly functional name? Or do you show off your suspect sense of humour by giving it a stupid name that will make you and your mates laugh? A good example of the latter appeared in a paper recently published in Science.
The undeniable attraction of the stupid name becomes clear from a quick perusal of a few molecular biology papers, which are full of proteins with names like sonic hedgehog, werewolf and tequila. Now, admittedly, some of these stupid names can be fairly amusing, especially when the name relates in some way to the protein’s function.
So, for instance, the protein coitus interruptus is found in the males of a mutant strain of the fruit fly Drosphilia melanogaster, the molecular biologist’s experimental model of choice. This unfortunate mutant is only able to copulate for 12 minutes rather than the usual 20.
Up to now, all these stupid names have been pretty much independent of each other. But a team of molecular biologists led by Qinghua Liu at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has just gone one step further. The stupid name that they have given their newly-discovered protein appears to be directly inspired by the stupid name already given to a related protein. It could be start of a whole new approach to naming proteins.
Liu and his team were studying RNA interference (RNAi) in D. melanogaster. RNAi is a gene silencing mechanism that takes advantage of the fact that any double-stranded RNA detected within a cell is automatically chopped up.
This happens because, unlike DNA, cellular RNA is normally single stranded, whereas viral RNA tends to be double stranded. So the cell assumes any double-stranded RNA that it comes across is viral and chops it up. To make doubly sure that all the viral RNA is destroyed, a small fragment of the chopped up RNA is incorporated into a protein structure known as the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Using this RNA fragment as a guide, the RISC then goes round the cell cutting up any single-stranded RNA with a complementary sequence.
Scientists have recently discovered that cells also regularly utilise this RNAi mechanism to control expression of their own genes, by using the RISC to cut up unwanted RNA.
The RISC in D. melanogaster cells is known to involve three proteins: Dicer-2, Argonaute 2 and R2D2, which is clearly named after the beeping robot in Star Wars. Liu and his team have now discovered another protein that is involved in the RISC, which works in conjunction with R2D2 and which they have inevitably named C3PO.
To their credit, Liu and his team have attempted to provide a scientific justification for the name: apparently C3PO stands for component 3 promotor of RISC. But I don’t think they’re really fooling anyone.
The question is where will this lead? Will the proteins involved in RNAi in other organisms also start to be named after Star Wars characters (there’s probably more than enough)? And will other collections of related proteins be named after other sets of fictional characters?
If that is to be the future of protein naming, I would like to make a suggestion. Obviously science fiction and fantasy characters are most likely to be appropriated; indeed, there are already proteins named Vulcan and Klingon. But can I ask scientists to look further afield to other genres, such as westerns and gangster films, to add a bit of variety. Let’s have a fish protein called Luca Brasi or a light receptor protein called Angel Eyes.
At the very least, it should make molecular biology papers even more entertaining than they already are.
