6 ms·

Sonic hedgehog protein

58 points by eigenvalue 4y ago

bitwize 4y ago
A chemical that suppresses sonic hedgehog gene expression is called robotnikinin, after Dr. Robotnik (now Dr. Eggman). As a Sonic fan since the early 90s, this makes me happy.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Robotnikinin https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Robotnikinin This made my day.
  - phkahler 4y ago
    GP was not a joke!
mcbuilder 4y ago
It's not that different than naming a Protein by a Greek god or goddess, is it?
- bitwize 4y ago
  There was controversy surrounding the name. If you're a doctor telling parents that their child is sick because of a defect in the sonic hedgehog protein, they're going to think you're trolling them. So these days they just tend to use abbreviations like SHH, and for new genes and proteins there is a standard nomenclature. One of the lessons we've learned since the 90s is that cute names (for genes, proteins, servers, programming languages, etc.) can be inadvertently problematic or made retroactively problematic, and are better off avoided.
  - b800h 4y ago
    Do we use this expression "problematic" to make an objective statement by side-stepping the subjective term "offensive"?
    - bitwize 4y ago
      It just means "causes a problem". I have proposed the use of "marginalizing" as a replacement for "offensive" in the sense of "reinforces systemic biases against certain groups of people", after I saw character on a British procedural say "Don't call somebody 'hot' or 'a lush'; it's marginalising."
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Seesh its just a synonym. The english language is full of them.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Uhm... maybe if you are talking about that Greek god. You know, the one who delights schoolchildren and exasperates astronomers.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
While the name might be cute to a researcher, it puts clinicians in a difficult position. Imagine facing parents and having to break to them the terrible news that their child has a problem with their Sonic the Hedgehog gene. What an awful injection of whimsy when none is welcome.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jacobriis 4y ago
  "While the name might be cute to a researcher, it puts clinicians in a difficult position... What an awful injection of whimsy when none is welcome." [1] I can't imagine being placed in this position where I may have to occasionally abbreviate the name of this protein SHH. Very difficult, just awful. Not welcome!
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Just call it the SHH gene. This level of detail is hardly necessary to begin with.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    I don't know about you, but when my doctor throws a bunch of acronyms at me, I always ask what they mean. If nothing else, it slows down the torrent of information enough for me to process what I'm hearing. But I know enough greek and latin roots that it usually helps my memory file the information away for future retrieval. Sometimes doctors get offended at having to explain what's going on to the patient. Those are bad doctors.
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      > Sometimes doctors get offended at having to explain what's going on to the patient. I didn't mean it that way. It's all about using an appropriate language and level of detail for each person. It's fun to talk about how Sonic the Hedgehog was immortalized in the human genome here on HN but in a clinical setting it's ultimately irrelevant and counterproductive. Some people are curious and ask lots of questions. Many will be confused and tune you out completely if you start explaining technical stuff. It's the doctor's job to help them understand so they can make informed decisions. This is accomplished by tailoring the message to each recipient.
LarsDu88 4y ago
I actually PhD interviewed with the discoverer of this one!
tejtm 4y ago
Names from days before the "Nomenclature Committee". There are good reasons why the process went to committee but "shh" (for zebrafish) was not it. Also when you think 'researcher'; in some cases it may help to picture collage students between parties. [] https://www.genenames.org/ https://www.genenames.org/
- rezonant 4y ago
  These days photomontage students get all the research accolades. No one appreciates the work that goes into a quality collage any more.
globular-toast 4y ago
This came up on a slide in a biology lecture I attended. I was the only computer science student present and did a double take when I saw it. I asked the lecturer if I had read correctly and she confirmed. Nobody else in the room found it amusing. If anything I think they found the novelty names tiresome.
aquafox 4y ago
There are lots of other strange sounding proteins in biology, e.g Dickkopf (DKK), which is german for 'thick head', because increased Dickkopf-1 makes large heads in a certain tadpole species. There are also toll-like receptors ('toll' being german for 'yay'), because their discoverer, Nobel laurate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, was very excited when she found them.
- type0 4y ago
  a whole list of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_biological_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_biological_nam...
- culopatin 4y ago
  When Germans get excited they say “toll”?
- dodslaser 4y ago
  There's a signal transduction pathway where a mitogen activated protein (MAP) is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase, which itself is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by (you guessed it) a MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase. One of my personal favorite protein names is Mothers Against Decapentaplegic. As with most of the funny gene names it was coined by drosophila researchers.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
"Two of these genes, desert hedgehog and Indian hedgehog, were named for species of hedgehogs, while sonic hedgehog was named after the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog.[15][16] The gene was named by Robert Riddle, a postdoctoral fellow at the Tabin Lab, after his wife Betsy Wilder came home with a magazine containing an advert for the game Sonic the Hedgehog.[17][18][19] In the zebrafish, two of the three vertebrate hh genes are duplicated: SHH a[20] and SHH b[21] (formerly described as tiggywinkle hedgehog, named for Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a character from Beatrix Potter's books for children) and ihha and ihhb[22] (formerly described as echidna hedgehog, named for the spiny anteater and not for the character Knuckles the Echidna in the Sonic franchise)."
tedunangst 4y ago
How is the list of biological processes ordered? Why is negative regulation of cell differentiation so far away from positive regulation of cell differentiation?
_xerces_ 4y ago
Ah, Hacker News the place where people go to find posts of Wikipedia articles.
sublinear 4y ago
What an awful name

58 points by eigenvalue 4y ago

A chemical that suppresses sonic hedgehog gene expression is called robotnikinin, after Dr. Robotnik (now Dr. Eggman). As a Sonic fan since the early 90s, this makes me happy.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Robotnikinin https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Robotnikinin This made my day.
- phkahler 4y ago
  GP was not a joke!

mcbuilder 4y ago

It's not that different than naming a Protein by a Greek god or goddess, is it?

bitwize 4y ago
There was controversy surrounding the name. If you're a doctor telling parents that their child is sick because of a defect in the sonic hedgehog protein, they're going to think you're trolling them. So these days they just tend to use abbreviations like SHH, and for new genes and proteins there is a standard nomenclature. One of the lessons we've learned since the 90s is that cute names (for genes, proteins, servers, programming languages, etc.) can be inadvertently problematic or made retroactively problematic, and are better off avoided.
- b800h 4y ago
  Do we use this expression "problematic" to make an objective statement by side-stepping the subjective term "offensive"?
  - bitwize 4y ago
    It just means "causes a problem". I have proposed the use of "marginalizing" as a replacement for "offensive" in the sense of "reinforces systemic biases against certain groups of people", after I saw character on a British procedural say "Don't call somebody 'hot' or 'a lush'; it's marginalising."
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Seesh its just a synonym. The english language is full of them.
GuB-42 4y ago
Uhm... maybe if you are talking about that Greek god. You know, the one who delights schoolchildren and exasperates astronomers.

kelseyfrog 4y ago

While the name might be cute to a researcher, it puts clinicians in a difficult position. Imagine facing parents and having to break to them the terrible news that their child has a problem with their Sonic the Hedgehog gene. What an awful injection of whimsy when none is welcome.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jacobriis 4y ago
"While the name might be cute to a researcher, it puts clinicians in a difficult position... What an awful injection of whimsy when none is welcome." [1] I can't imagine being placed in this position where I may have to occasionally abbreviate the name of this protein SHH. Very difficult, just awful. Not welcome!
matheusmoreira 4y ago
Just call it the SHH gene. This level of detail is hardly necessary to begin with.
- klyrs 4y ago
  I don't know about you, but when my doctor throws a bunch of acronyms at me, I always ask what they mean. If nothing else, it slows down the torrent of information enough for me to process what I'm hearing. But I know enough greek and latin roots that it usually helps my memory file the information away for future retrieval. Sometimes doctors get offended at having to explain what's going on to the patient. Those are bad doctors.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > Sometimes doctors get offended at having to explain what's going on to the patient. I didn't mean it that way. It's all about using an appropriate language and level of detail for each person. It's fun to talk about how Sonic the Hedgehog was immortalized in the human genome here on HN but in a clinical setting it's ultimately irrelevant and counterproductive. Some people are curious and ask lots of questions. Many will be confused and tune you out completely if you start explaining technical stuff. It's the doctor's job to help them understand so they can make informed decisions. This is accomplished by tailoring the message to each recipient.

LarsDu88 4y ago

I actually PhD interviewed with the discoverer of this one!

tejtm 4y ago

Names from days before the "Nomenclature Committee". There are good reasons why the process went to committee but "shh" (for zebrafish) was not it. Also when you think 'researcher'; in some cases it may help to picture collage students between parties. [] https://www.genenames.org/ https://www.genenames.org/

rezonant 4y ago
These days photomontage students get all the research accolades. No one appreciates the work that goes into a quality collage any more.

globular-toast 4y ago

This came up on a slide in a biology lecture I attended. I was the only computer science student present and did a double take when I saw it. I asked the lecturer if I had read correctly and she confirmed. Nobody else in the room found it amusing. If anything I think they found the novelty names tiresome.

aquafox 4y ago

There are lots of other strange sounding proteins in biology, e.g Dickkopf (DKK), which is german for 'thick head', because increased Dickkopf-1 makes large heads in a certain tadpole species. There are also toll-like receptors ('toll' being german for 'yay'), because their discoverer, Nobel laurate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, was very excited when she found them.

type0 4y ago
a whole list of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_biological_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_biological_nam...
culopatin 4y ago
When Germans get excited they say “toll”?
dodslaser 4y ago
There's a signal transduction pathway where a mitogen activated protein (MAP) is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase, which itself is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by (you guessed it) a MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase. One of my personal favorite protein names is Mothers Against Decapentaplegic. As with most of the funny gene names it was coined by drosophila researchers.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

"Two of these genes, desert hedgehog and Indian hedgehog, were named for species of hedgehogs, while sonic hedgehog was named after the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog.[15][16] The gene was named by Robert Riddle, a postdoctoral fellow at the Tabin Lab, after his wife Betsy Wilder came home with a magazine containing an advert for the game Sonic the Hedgehog.[17][18][19] In the zebrafish, two of the three vertebrate hh genes are duplicated: SHH a[20] and SHH b[21] (formerly described as tiggywinkle hedgehog, named for Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a character from Beatrix Potter's books for children) and ihha and ihhb[22] (formerly described as echidna hedgehog, named for the spiny anteater and not for the character Knuckles the Echidna in the Sonic franchise)."

tedunangst 4y ago

How is the list of biological processes ordered? Why is negative regulation of cell differentiation so far away from positive regulation of cell differentiation?

_xerces_ 4y ago

Ah, Hacker News the place where people go to find posts of Wikipedia articles.

sublinear 4y ago

What an awful name