For most of these loci we don't know which probe was used, but the information is anyway valueable. So, we kept it the ugly way. The definition of a gene is difficult. Generally, it's a piece of genomic DNA that is translated into RNA and then into a protein , which will then do things in the organism. In IXDB, genes are mainly names.
Most genes have a number of synonyms .
A gene can not take part in an experiment, neither as probe nor as target. Only probes derived from genes take part in experiments. This is however only a potential relation, that is never currently used. In fact, a CDNA is a clone as well, but it has some more intersting properties - e.g. derived EST, and in future it will be heavily connected to the GENEs. Of course, the gene cannot have been the probe.