Recommended nomenclature for five mammalian carboxylesterase gene families: human, mouse, and rat genes and proteins

Abstract

Mammalian carboxylesterase (CES or Ces) genes encode enzymes that participate in xenobiotic, drug, and lipid metabolism in the body and are members of at least five gene families. Tandem duplications have added more genes for some families, particularly for mouse and rat genomes, which has caused confusion in naming rodent Ces genes. This article describes a new nomenclature system for human, mouse, and rat carboxylesterase genes that identifies homolog gene families and allocates a unique name for each gene. The guidelines of human, mouse, and rat gene nomenclature committees were followed and “CES” (human) and “Ces” (mouse and rat) root symbols were used followed by the family number (e.g., human CES1). Where multiple genes were identified for a family or where a clash occurred with an existing gene name, a letter was added (e.g., human CES4A; mouse and rat Ces1a) that reflected gene relatedness among rodent species (e.g., mouse and rat Ces1a). Pseudogenes were named by adding “P” and a number to the human gene name (e.g., human CES1P1) or by using a new letter followed by ps for mouse and rat Ces pseudogenes (e.g., Ces2d-ps). Gene transcript isoforms were named by adding the GenBank accession ID to the gene symbol (e.g., human CES1_AB119995 or mouse Ces1e_BC019208). This nomenclature improves our understanding of human, mouse, and rat CES/Ces gene families and facilitates research into the structure, function, and evolution of these gene families. It also serves as a model for naming CES genes from other mammalian species.

Control of RhoA Methylation by Carboxylesterase I

“…The carboxylesterase family of proteins is quite complex and contains many homologous subfamilies, each which have several isoforms (29). In this study, we identified CES1 as an esterase involved in RhoA methylation, whereas CES2 appears to not play a role in this regard.…”

Depot-Specific Expression of Lipolytic Genes in Human Adipose Tissues

“…In addition to Ces3, a mouse ortholog of CES1 that we propose to call Ces1d to avoid confusion 20) , we have reported that a paralog of Ces3, Tgh-2 or CesML1, which we propose to call Ces1f 20) , is also expressed in adipose tissues and mediates adipocyte lipolysis in mice 21) . Fasting markedly induces the mRNA expression of both genes, suggesting their role in lipolysis, particularly after prolonged starvation because the regulation is primarily transcriptional.…”

Bioinformatics and Evolution of Vertebrate Pancreatic Lipase and Related Proteins and Genes

“…The bioinformatic methodologies used in this investigation of pancreatic lipase-like genes and proteins may be also readily applied to other pancreatic proteins as well as other gene families encoding enzymes and proteins, including neutral lipases [35][36][37], acid lipases [66], carboxylesterases [67], enolases [68] and other gene families [69][70][71].…”