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There are lots of other strange sounding proteins in biology, e.g Dickkopf (DKK), which is german for 'thick head', because increased Dickkopf-1 makes large heads in a certain tadpole species. There are also toll-like receptors ('toll' being german for 'yay'), because their discoverer, Nobel laurate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, was very excited when she found them.




There's a signal transduction pathway where a mitogen activated protein (MAP) is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase, which itself is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by a MAP kinase kinase kinase, which is phosphorylated by (you guessed it) a MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase.

One of my personal favorite protein names is Mothers Against Decapentaplegic. As with most of the funny gene names it was coined by drosophila researchers.


When Germans get excited they say “toll”?




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