How do I obtain primary symbols and all other symbols, synonyms and names associated with individual genes at NCBI?

To obtain the primary gene symbol and all associated aliases for a list of genes, use the gene_info files in the Gene FTP directory. The GENE_INFO sub-directory provides a file (All_Data.gene_info.gz) that contains this information for all available organisms. Additionally, it is partitioned into sub-directories by individual taxonomic group.

For example, locate the gene_info file for all human genes in the Mammalia sub-directory. The description of the gene_info files is provided in the README document that also contains descriptions of all other files in the Gene FTP directory.

In general, many FTP files are compressed (zipped) due to their large size, but individual organism gene_info files are still small enough to be imported into an Excel spreadsheet and enable those users who do not script to extract information that they need.