Zbtb7 was Given the Backronym Pokemon But Not for Long

For a variety of reasons, you've probably never brought up Zbtb7 in casual conversation. First of all, since this gene is known to cause cancer, it is not the kind of topic that most of us would normally discuss. Given that most people don't know the identities of individual genes, it's a morbid topic that requires a lot of specialist knowledge. Another factor is that it had a few different names before arriving at the current jumble of letters and digits.

It was previously known by a different term, which was used by researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the kind of people who do need to discuss cancer genes by name. It was known as Pokemon. The team came up with the backronym because the gene's official name was POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, or POKEMO gene. Is that close enough?

Pokemon is undoubtedly simpler to pronounce than the whole name and a little more approachable than Zbtb7. Unfortunately, the creators of Pokemon failed to recognize the irony in naming a cancer-causing gene after their amusing animation. The cancer researchers altered the moniker to the more commonplace one we now have after Pokemon USA threatened to sue if it wasn't. It appears that they weren't fully on board with the joke.