Commentary: mouse genetic nomenclature. Standardization of strain, gene, and protein symbols.

The use of standard nomenclatures for describing the strains, genes, and proteins of species is vital for the interpretation, archiving, analysis, and recovery of experimental data on the laboratory mouse. At a time when sharing of data and meta-analysis of experimental results is becoming a dominant mode of scientific investigation, failure to respect formal nomenclatures can cause confusion and errors and, in some cases, contribute to poor science. Here, the authors present the basic nomenclature rules for laboratory mice and explain how these rules should be applied to complex genetic manipulations and crosses.