The following standards of nomenclature have been adopted by the Arabidopsis community and should be followed in publications and presentations. Some gene symbols chosen before these guidelines were established may have two letters. When only a single allele is known, the hyphen is not needed. The same rules of nomenclature apply to both dominant and recessive mutations. Designation of allele numbers has generally been resolved by the groups involved in coordination with the stock centers.
Many journals have their own guidelines for designating multiple mutants.
Information on molecular markers associated with insertional mutants should be excluded from the gene symbol. When dealing with genes identified from natural variants in different ecotypes, the Columbia ecotype should be considered wild type except when it contains the recessive allele. This choice of Columbia as the standard ecotype is consistent with the genome project. In some cases it may be appropriate to use letters to designate the ecotype in the gene symbol. For example, FLC-col has been used to denote the FLC allele in ecotype Columbia.