="anchor" href="#upating-human-gene-symbols"></a>
</h2>
<p>The official gene symbols used in a dataset can change depending on
the reference version used in aligning that particular dataset. For
human genes the official symbols are set by <a href="https://www.genenames.org/" class="external-link">HGNC</a>.</p>
<p>In the absence of more static identifier (Ensembl ID or Entrez ID
Numbers) the only way to update gene symbols is to examine the current
and past symbols for all genes in the HGNC database. However