SUGGESTION FOR A NEW, SEMIRATIONAL NOMENCLATURE FOR THE FREE CHELATORS OF FERRIOXAMINES

The author proposes that the free chelators of ferrioxamines should be referred to as proferroxamines (pFOs) and the corresponding structura l and regulatory genes as pfoA, pfoB, pfoC, etc, He furthermore sugges ts that individual proferrioxamines should be distinguished by subscri pts that indicate the number and sizes of the constituting diamines, a nd, where applicable, a cyclic structure or a C-terminal acetic acid s ubstitution, Modifications to the basic structures can be accomodated by standard nomenclature rules, The new semirational nomenclature feat ures the best of the old alphabetical and the Chemical Abstracts nomen clatures; it is structure-based and thus chemically informative but st ill quite concise.