gene symbol as gene ID?

[alice]

Hi,

Do you accepted Gene Symbol (Eg Tp53, Crebbp) as Gene ID? I did not
find Gene Symbol to be on of the accepted Gene ID System by Expression
Dataset Manager. This occurs to me as strange as Gene Symbol is very
widely used.

Thanks!

[Nathan Salomonis]

Hi Alice,

These IDs used to be supported in older database versions (2006) by
storing the gene symbols from EntrezGene as additional EntrezGene
identifiers. The problem is that if gene symbols are supported, so
must all secondary associations between gene symbol and all other
supported systems (e.g., symbol-Ensembl, symbol-UniProt, symbol-MGI,
symbol-Gene Ontology). Since the current gene database is largely
built in an automated fashion from the Ensembl database and available
secondary gene associations, supporting gene symbol IDs would require
adding a new "gene system" not currently provided by Ensembl or other
supported databases.

I will discuss this with our group to see if it is possible to support
in the future. This can be currently accomplished for pathway over-
representation analysis using GO-Elite (http://www.genmapp.org/
go_elite) with the simple addition of your own symbol-Ensembl or
symbol-Entrez table, using the "Add New Relationships Table
Option" (http://genmapp.org/go_elite/help.htm#custom).

Best,
Nathan