Ras and Raf
Ras was named by a committee in 1981, from rat sarcoma virus.
Now Ras is one of the activators of a protein called Raf. I originally thought Raf would be be named from Ras factor or something similar, but first I discovered there was a gene called Raf from 'regulation of alpha-fetoprotein' in 1977. Or was it a microbial gene for the ability to use the trisaccharide raffinose? But it was neither of these. Raf seems to get its name in a 1983 paper which gives no direct statement of derivation. It was isolated from 3611 murine sarcoma virus which transforms fibroblasts, so we might guess at 'rat fibroblast'. This was before there was any knowledge of Ras:Raf interactions so it's just the not-quite-coincidence that they both came from rat viruses.
Raf itself is a family of proteins. In a rather pleasing blow against hyper consistent nomenclature, the usual three are called A-Raf, named in 1986 'in recognition of its relatedness to the raf oncogene', B-Raf, named two years later 'because it is related to but distinct from c-raf and A-raf', and ... Raf-1. Raf-1, probably because the viral oncogene v-raf had two human homologues, c-raf-1 and a pseudogene c-raf-2. So when the time came for naming isoforms of Raf, presumably the one in Raf-1 was already passing as a modifier.
JNK and FOS
JNK: a c-Jun kinase. jun was an oncogene identified in 1987. Its name comes from ju-nana, the japanese number 17, for it was isolated from avian sarcoma virus (ASV) 17. The c- prefix meant cellular homologue. Think of jun and you think of fos (at least Dot does and she's a professor). fos took its name around 1983 from FBJ murine osteosarcoma virus. And FBJ turn out to be, rather splendidly, Miriam P Finkel, Birute O. Biskis, and PB Jinkins who identified the virus at Argonne in 1966.
After this proteoetymological excitment, the transcription factors coded by jun (some authors) or the heterodimers of either Jun or Fos (some others I met one of once) are more dully called AP1 for activator protein 1.
PP2A
Protein phosphatase 2A.
Somewhat uninspiredly named by the laboratory of Philip Cohen, although I think that lab found so many of them they could be forgiven. First identified as protein phospatase 'Type II' in 1977 because it was the second off a gel of a muscle fraction.
Converted to latin numbers and subtyped by the time of casting into stone by an Science review in 1983.
NFkB
NFkappaB: KBF2_HUMAN
nuclear factor that binds the kappa immunoglobulin light chain gene enhancer in B cells. (So kappa doesnt mean it is the eighth in a series, for Ig light chains are called kappa and lambda). First known use of NFkappaB is from David Baltimore's lab in 1987
The B in B cells, as any fule kno, is from Bursa of Fabricius, the lymphoid organ from they originate in Birds. Earliest usage of this I can find is 1972 (JSTOR access required) though they say the usage by then was common. At the time it wasn't known where B cells matured, unlike T cells.
