Catalogue of Gene Symbols for Wheat

Catalogue of Gene Symbols for Wheat (a.k.a. Wheat Gene Catalogue, WGC)

The Catalogue of Gene Symbols for Wheat, a.k.a. the Wheat Gene Catalogue (WGC) is a resource of accepted gene and QTL names, mapping and germplasm information, and laboratory designations for markers. The Catalogue is published in whole periodically with yearly supplements by a committee of experts in wheat research. Komugi, the Wheat Genetics Resources Database of Japan, currently hosts an electronic version of the catalog and supplements. All genes and QTL from the WGC have been added to the WheatIS centralized hub of wheat information for researchers.


Nomenclature
The beginning of the 2013 edition of WGC ("Introduction") contains guidelines for gene nomenclature. Following these guidelines will provide standardization and uniformity in the literature. It is important to remember that full-assemblies for wheat and other small grains were made available in the last couple of years, and it would be very helpful to other researchers if authors associate their genes of their interest with gene models in their publications (for example with TraesCSXXXXXXXXXXXXX gene models in the IWGSC assemblies). The 2013 WGC introduction is available here (starting on page 9).


Nomenclature - 2023 update
A community-driven effort culminated in providing guidance in gene nomenclature in 2023 (Boden et al., Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 2023-the pdf is available at the bottom of the page). As the authors put it in the Abtract:

The last decade has seen a proliferation in genomic resources for wheat, including reference- and pan-genome assemblies with gene annotations, which provide new opportunities to detect, characterise, and describe genes that influence traits of interest. The expansion of genetic information has supported growth of the wheat research community and catalysed strong interest in the genes that control agronomically important traits, such as yield, pathogen resistance, grain quality, and abiotic stress tolerance. To accommodate these developments, we present an updated set of guidelines for gene nomenclature in wheat. These guidelines can be used to describe loci identified based on morphological or phenotypic features or to name genes based on sequence information, such as similarity to genes characterised in other species or the biochemical properties of the encoded protein. The updated guidelines provide a flexible system that is not overly prescriptive but provides structure and a common framework for naming genes in wheat, which may be extended to related cereal species. We propose these guidelines be used henceforth by the wheat research community to facilitate integration of data from independent studies and allow broader and more efficient use of text and data mining approaches, which will ultimately help further accelerate wheat research and breeding.



Ongoing Curation of WGC by GrainGenes
In 2019 the GrainGenes curation team began to systematically curate all genes and ancillary information from the WGC into the MySQL GrainGenes database. Click here for the GrainGenes update page to follow the progress.


WGC Documents in GrainGenes

The pdfs of WGC and MacGene documents are available at https://wheat.pw.usda.gov/GG3/Wheat_Gene_Catalog_Documents.


Links to Complete and Supplemental Publications (both to Komugi and GrainGenes)

Supplements:

Downloadable Files: 

PDF icon Boden et al TAG 2023.pdf