Hi everyone,

I have a list of genes (n = 5726) for which I wanted to get the chrom, start and end. I used the following query:

    library(biomaRt)
    ensembl <- useMart("ensembl", dataset = "hsapiens_gene_ensembl")
    lit.genes.ann <- getBM(attributes = c('chromosome_name','start_position','end_position','hgnc_symbol'), filters = 'hgnc_symbol', values = gene.names, mart = ensembl)

I got results for all but 79 genes back. This list was probably generated some time back and I am using the current ensembl build to get the data. I looked up one such gene EMR1 on Genecards and looks like it has been changed to [ADGRE1][1]. 

Is there a way to do a batch search & import to get current HGNC symbols for all the obsolete genes that I have? I am not looking for all the aliases but just one approved HGNC symbol per obsolete gene name. Some of the gene names are:

    ACN9
    AQPEP
    BAI1
    PAPL
    EMR1


  [1]: http://www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=ADGRE1
Alright, I posted the question too soon I guess. For future reference - [Multi-symbol checker][1] worked. 


  [1]: http://www.genenames.org/cgi-bin/symbol_checker