Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Longest Chemical Name: 64,060 letters

Posted by timothy on from the 64k-should-be-enough-for-anyone dept.

mycro writes "A new article on Wikipedia shows the longest chemical name, reaching 64,060 letters. Methionylalanylthreonyl...leucine is a chemical name for enaptin, a nuclear envelope protein found in human myocytes and synapses, which is made up of 8,797 amino acids. It is involved in the maintenance of nuclear organization and structural integrity, tethering the cell nucleus to the cytoskeleton by interacting with the nuclear envelope and with F-actin in the cytoplasm."

7 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Spelling bee by regcrusher · · Score: 5, Funny

    I dare the contestants of the Scrips-Howard spelling bee to get that one. "May I hear that word in a sentence?" "Uh...... (nervous) no."

  2. Re:Easy Paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or those who RTFA would call it enaptin.

  3. I blame IUPAC nomenclature by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem with this kind of naming scheme is that no valuable information can be quickly gleaned from the name itself. Neither the function nor form of the amino acid can be determined or inferred easily without resorting to computer-aided decryption of the name itself.

    Something easier to remember (not an acronym of this long-ass acronym) that clearly explained the form and function of the amino acid would be much more useful.

    In programmer terms, this IUPAC nomenclature is like Hungarian notation, putting too much information about the data into the name without sufficiently ascribing useful information to it.

    1. Re:I blame IUPAC nomenclature by Dr.+GeneMachine · · Score: 5, Informative
      This is no IUPAC problem - this long name is simply the sequence. If you have a functional protein, you have other nomenclatures at hand, for example the IEC classification for enzymes. Biochemists have developed several systems of nomenclature, which are actually useful (Overview here. IUPAC has its place for small molecules organic chemists are concerned with.

      By the way, if you want a longer and equally useless chemical name, you can always spell out the nucleotid sequence of a whole chromosome in full nomenclature.

      --
      This comment does not exist.
  4. Re:Spelling? by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I say - I think I might change my Ph.D topic to study that chemmical. Write it in your thesis a few times and there is a two-volume manuscript that is full mostly of a few instances of one chemical name. I bet that's why the name is so long... whoever discovered it decided that he needed a space filler for his thesis...

    --
    I drink to make other people interesting!
  5. Comment haiku by AlpineR · · Score: 4, Funny

    Methionylal-
    anylthreonyl... oh just
    call me enaptin.

  6. In related news... by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Funny

    The artist formerly known as , formerly known as Prince, has changed his name to the 64,060 symbol long name of a protein referred to as 'Methionylalanylthreonyl...leucine'.

    His upcoming album will have a 10 page foldout with his name printed on it.

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)