NGS sequencing depth notation

Question

[liorglic]

I know this is not a bioinformatics question per se, but still hope you can help.
When preparing a manuscript, what notation should I use to denote sequencing depth of e.g. 50? I've seen 50x, 50X, and 50× . Any idea which one is correct? Is there any "authority" on this that you can direct me to?

Answer 1

[andres.firrincieli]

The correct answer is 50×. See multiplication sign

[Istvan Albert]

technically correct, but in practice, I would recommend writing little x,

puzzline errors start happening when we use characters that look the same but aren't the same, especially when copy-pasting into text, code, etc.

not worth the trouble. i.e. inverted quotes by Word, minus that is not a minus, underscore that is not a real underscore, whitespace that is either tab or space, etc