A universal nomenclature for subunits of the RNA polymerase III transcription initiation factor TFIIIB: Table 1.

At the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Transcription held last summer, Lszl Tora initiated a discussion about the increasingly bewildering nomenclature used to refer to TATAbinding protein-associated factors (TAFs) in different organisms. This problem was most acute for TAFs involved in transcription by RNA polymerase (Pol) II because of the large (and growing) number of these proteins. However, the existing nomenclature was also problematic for TAFs used in transcription by RNA poymerases I and III. In particular, the frequent naming of TAFs according to their molecular mass, which varies among orthologs, created considerable confusion. Recently, a unified and systematic nomenclature for the Pol II TAFs has been adopted