Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Specify name list style for new entries for the Citations Bot

@Boghog, can you please comment on a discussion with the authors of the Citations Bot on configurable format of the name list style based on the template.

https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/4236#issuecomment-1842928339 Maxim Masiutin (talk) 14:12, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Boghog The citations bot is developed in such a way that where issues require consensus on Wikipedia policy, they are discussed on the [Citation Bot Talk Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Citation_bot). According to the discussion here, there was a consensus that the bot should use existing template {{cs1 config|name-list-style=vanc}} that was introduced in August 2023 to avoid creating any new template. I modified the pull request to support this template, and the maintainers of the citation bot on Github accepted the change. If you take the citations bot from Github, it will insert "vauthors" rather than "first1/last1" for the pages where it sees the "name-list-style=vanc" parameter for the "cs1 config" template. JFYI. Please consider updating your citation tool to always insert {{cs1 config|name-list-style=vanc}} if a page does not contain it. If you get the bot from github, you will see what regexp can be easily used to detect such template. Therefore, with that template the bot will insert vauthors and you will no longer need to patrol pages to replace first/last to vauthors, it will be done by the citations bot. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 04:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
@Boghog: - since the bot should already support {{cs1 config|name-list-style=vanc}}, I'm running a custom version of the bot to add this template to all the pages which have "vauthors" in at least one citation. Therefore, in such pages, the bot in the future should add this kind of list of authors. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

The question posed in the RM at Talk:3"-deamino-3"-oxonicotianamine reductase is what symbol should be used in similar titles. Currently, that article and several other articles are using a quote mark after the numeral. I suspect this should be a double prime or two single primes or two apostrophes instead. You are invited to participate in that discussion, which should take place there, not here. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Cell regulation

Seems like we ought to have a topic for cell regulation, or at least redirect to someplace relevant, since people are misusing the redirect for the journal Cell Regulation. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

It probably needs a disambiguation page for the journal and for the concept. One possible redirect for the concept would be to Cell_cycle#Regulation_of_eukaryotic_cell_cycle, as cell regulation is often discussed in the context of the cell cycle. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 04:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
OK, I stubbed that in at Cell regulation. Dicklyon (talk) 19:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:NC ratio#Requested move 19 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 07:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Agouti

I was trying to make sense of Agouti (coloration) when I realized that the following articles exist:

My confusion here comes from the overlap and vague scope between all of these articles. Agouti-related peptide also exists but I see no problem with it, it just gets lumped in with the rest due to the name. Agouti-signaling protein and Agouti coloration genetics seem to have a lot of overlap, only that the latter is a list of all the genes related to agouti coloration and the former is a more useful, if somewhat technical, overview of the gene. What I'd like to know is if a merge is possible or if there's some better approach that I don't see because I'm not familiar enough with molecular biology to say. Also, would like to figure out the scope of Agouti (coloration) because it's not in a good spot right now, but there isn't much room for it to grow without getting into genetics. Reconrabbit 00:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd probably have one article for the gene and another for the colouration. We don't need 2 articles for the colouration. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
A bit ago the article on coloration was merged with coloration genetics, presumably very poorly as it was un-merged later. I could try to do it again after putting it up for comment? Reconrabbit 13:21, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Request to create a new article

Good day Computational Biology taskforce, I am writing to request the creation of a new article. I need your help, because I want to participate in (Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Computational Biology/13th ISCB Student Wikipedia competition announcement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Molecular_Biology/Computational_Biology/13th_ISCB_Student_Wikipedia_competition_announcement . Is possible ???? The title of new article is "El espacio químico de la vida" because I want to participe in OTHER LANGUAGES. Thank you very much for time and help me.https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_espacio_qu%C3%ADmico_de_la_vida

Excellent day, Haikluum (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Tkarakulak, @NellySelem.
Haikluum, I don't speak Spanish but it seems the page https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_espacio_qu%C3%ADmico_de_la_vida was deleted due to a copyright violation - not sure if this was a draft you started? Please note the competition rules on plagiarism and copyright; these are Wikipedia guidelines as well. Amkilpatrick (talk) 10:35, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Hello I'm not sure about the copy-right violation, grammarly says its original text. Perhaps, you need to ask the user Saloca about why he considers that this is infringes copyright. NellySelem (talk) 05:31, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Irrelevant section in certain article - what's your opinion?

Im reading a section "Research areas/P53 mutations in Apoptosis" in apoptosome over and over, but it seems to me, this section is completely unrelated to the subject of the article, apoptosome itself. I don't want to delete it right of the bat though. It looks like, with two preceding sections, like an informal introduction to the fourth one, hence this little thread in Wikiproject. InternetowyGołąb (talk) 02:13, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Oy, yeah, that section is about p53 or apoptosis, not the apoptosome. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:34, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

APETx1 article - Infobox error

Greetings, For article APETx1, at top it shows error line in red, Unknown parameter SequenceUnknown parameter Amino Acid Sequence. Asking for help here as I know almost nothing of the topic. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 20:01, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The infobox parameters have been corrected, thank you. ― Synpath 20:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Delete "Gene expression" article

I propose that we delete the article on Gene expression and replace it with redirects to relevant material found elsewhere such as Transcription, Translation, and Regulation of gene expression.

It's a bad idea to have multiple articles covering the same topic, especially when they conflict. Also, the Gene expression article is far too big and full of extraneous technical information that's way beyond the level we should be aiming at.Genome42 (talk) 21:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Gene expression is a fundamental topic in molecular biology; we need an article on the topic. I agree there are many facets to this broad and deep topic. The current organization, which introduces the topic, provides summaries and links to other more specialized topics, seems a good structure to reflect these facets. If there are sections that are too technical, those would be good candidates for a rewrite, but not a deletion. Let's not delete the forest to get at the trees. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 00:23, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Gene expression is represented as a whole process in biology textbooks. With the use of "Main article" templates, more interested reader shoudn't face any problems with finding more information. InternetowyGołąb (talk) 03:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
As a textbook writer and teacher I'm quite familiar with how the topic of gene expression is covered in molecular biology. We usually cover transcription and translation in some detail then we cover the basics of regulation of gene expression. All three of those topics are presented in separate articles on Wikipedia.
There's nothing in the article on gene expression that's not found elsewhere. The problem isn't just redundancy. It's that various editors insert their own biases and (possibly) misinformation into the various articles so that the more articles we have the greater the chance that they will conflict. There aren't very many of us working on these articles so let's concentrate on getting a few articles correct. Genome42 (talk) 21:09, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Check out the Gene expression article to see examples extraneous information. There are sections on "Folding," "Translocation," and "Protein transport." Are those really relevant topics in an article on gene expression?
The section on "Regulation of gene expression" only talks about the complex mechanisms in eukaryotes. There's nothing about the lac operon or the other fundamental examples in bacteria. There's nothing about how a transcription factor finds the right gene. Some of the material that's in that section is either incomplete or misleading. There's a section on methylation that doesn't even mention chromatin and doesn't explain why some CpGs are demethylated.
There's an entire section on "Transcriptional regulation in learning and memory" and another on "Transcriptional regulation in cancer." Really? There's a lengthy section on "Measurement" that's far too detailed, boring, and doesn't cite any sources. Does anybody really want to waste time cleaning up this article?Genome42 (talk) 21:34, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Gene expression is a solid example of a WP:BROAD concept. I don't think you could redirect the term to a single article and have that be satisfactory. I don't think it would be possible to build it into a disambiguation either. The current organization of a set of summarized subtopics linking to main articles is likely the best way of handling the term. Though I do agree that the article has bloat. ― Synpath 21:36, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

"Random sequencing"

On our Mycoplasma genitalium article, it says:

They performed an initial study of the genome using random sequencing in 1993

where "random sequencing" links to Random sequence (the mathematical concept). What should it link to instead? Marnanel (talk) 13:39, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

It should link to DNA sequencing where you can find descriptions of early sequencing techniques. Randomness is a core part of several techniques, but there's no dedicated section describing its use in that article. I don't think that the word 'random' should be part of the wikilink. ― Synpath 16:17, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Done— thank you. I note that "random" was in the title and abstract of the linked paper, which is presumably where the previous editor found it. Marnanel (talk) 21:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Zoonotic origins of COVID-19 has been nominated at Articles for Deletion. Interested editors may participate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoonotic origins of COVID-19. TarnishedPathtalk 09:47, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey everyone, the following PDB Gallery templates are not used anywhere. If you know where they should be used, please use them in the relevant articles. If they aren't needed please let me know.

Thanks! Gonnym (talk) 15:39, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Atavism: Real or psuedoscience?

Folks - quick question because I'm not a biologist or scientist by any stretch of the imagination. Is Atavism real or is this a psuedoscience article that has evaded detection? There appears to be a lot of synthesis or original research.--57.140.108.63 (talk) 03:12, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Atavism seems to be a legitimate concept but it wouldn't surprise me if it's sometimes used by fringe claims. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:07, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
Since it is tagged with {{Original research}}, it does look like the article needs to be bolstered with citations. Peaceray (talk) 07:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
Possibly a bit of both. A Google Scholar search for "atavism" in article titles gives over 100 hits since the year 2010, of which this article is a reasonable review. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:50, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Appropriate template for gene/protein synonyms

Recently I made some protein or gene (article about protein with title being gene descriptor) synonymous names redirects, and I wonder what would be the appropriate "R from..." tracking category template. InternetowyGołąb (talk) 13:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@InternetowyGołąb We have alternatives like {{R from acronym}} and {{R from initialism}} as well as the tracking Category {{R from alternative name}} I see you have used for NAXE. The template pages give guidance on which to use: in some cases more than one is appropriate. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello.

Mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis (mtFASII) is not yet well incorporated into the lipid-related articles or is completely missing in some of them. Therefore I ask for your help.

Could someone revise the introductory section of fatty acid synthesis? It should be clearer and earlier in the text that there are 2 different fatty acid syntheses in humans, cytosolic fatty acid synthesis (FASI) and mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis (mtFASII). The other sections of the article are also not quite coherent, you can simply see that the article was written with the knowledge that fatty acid synthesis only takes place in the cytosol.

In the articles on fatty acid and lipid metabolism, mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis is completely missing. Abvdj (talk) 12:45, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding fatty acyl-CoA esters

Hey there! I've been working on adding sources to the article fatty acyl-CoA esters, but since I haven't much expertise in the subject area, I'd like to get some clarification -- in particular, what's the relation between these esters and acyl-CoA itself? It seems the same process of beta-synthesis in mitochondrial metabolism is described in each. Thanks! DeemDeem52 (talk) 16:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

My impression is that they are the same thing, with Fatty acyl-CoA esters having a much more confusing name. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Hmm... if that's the case, then perhaps the page should be merged. I'll put in a merge proposal and see if it can't get consensus. Thanks! DeemDeem52 (talk) 14:53, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Source evaluation requested at Promoter (genetics)

Over at WikiProject Mathematics, we ran into a citation-spamming issue, where references to a substandard book were inserted by a COI editor. The statements being spammed with these citations were, variously, summaries that didn't need to be cluttered with footnotes, already supported by other references, or not actually supported by the spam reference. The article Promoter (genetics) may also have been affected. It would greatly help if a subject-matter specialist could evaluate the two sources (cited a total of seven times between them) co-authored by P. Gagniuc. Are the claims accurate and worth the words spent on them? Should the statements in question be cited to textbooks instead? XOR'easter (talk) 23:14, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking for some opinions

Please see Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard#Human mitochondrial genetics. We are looking for opinions about whether some ==External links== would be valuable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi everybody. I have been hired by UK Biobank to improve the article. I have uploaded an edit request on the talk page which I think would benefit from some specialist knowledge as some of the updates relate to concepts within the scope of this project and COMPBIO. Any help or feedback would be appreciated! Burchrusks (talk) 10:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

ETS2

I've added a bit to the ETS2 article to reflect the latest paper in Nature linking ETS2 with a wide range of inflammatory diseases. Please amend, or even remove, this if what I've written is wrong. — The Anome (talk) 20:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

ETS2 is a fairly important transcription factor, and these often have multiple functions. I think this addition is WP:UNDUE as it emphasizes one function among many, but mostly b/c the article currently doesn't list any other function so I am not sure if it should be removed. Typical problem with well-studied proteins, really. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:27, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Do we really need to have separate Wikipedia articles for every human gene? I don't think so.
Is it a good idea to insert all the latest speculations about the function of a given gene before they are confirmed by additional experiments in other labs? I don't think so. Genome42 (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:3α-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase#Requested_move_9_April_2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Natg 19 (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:AKR1C4#Requested move 9 April 2024 for closed discussion with outcome of 'Move'. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

MID gene

Just a quick question is there any articles about a gene in particular? I’m talking about a gene called MID (minus dominance). There does seem to be a lot of sources about this gene from:

here

here

here

Just asking to make sure it doesn’t go by a different name or something. I’m also wondering if genes here on Wikipedia have a certain style or policies.

Also I am bringing this up to see what y’all think about there being an article on this gene. When researching the evolution of sexes and mating types I noticed a lot of sources keep mentioning this gene.CycoMa1 (talk) 04:52, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a popular encyclopedia intended for a diverse audience. There are 25,000 genes in the human genome and something close to one million different different genes in the biosphere. We do not need to have a separate Wikipedia article for each gene.
But there's another problem that just as important. Any article on an individual genes is certainly going to bring up the definition of a gene and important issues such as regulation, evolution, and alternative splicing. It is proving to be very difficult to get individual editors to stick to the definitions and descriptions of these features that have been thrashed out in the articles specific to those topics. This leads to a lot of confusion and conflict so we should be very cautious about creating any new molecular biology articles unless they are absolutely necessary. Genome42 (talk) 14:57, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Does your response suggest that the "Gene Wiki Project" has been abandoned? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Ketone bodies#Requested move 25 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 00:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The outcome of this request was "Not moved". --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

RetractionBot

I posted this story from the Signpost last month. Things have evolved a bit and now Retraction bot handles {{Erratum}}, {{Expression of concern}}, and {{Retracted}}. These populate the following categories:

Extended content
  1. Adrenaline
  2. He Jiankui affair
  3. Akt/PKB signaling pathway
  4. AKT2
  5. Albumin transport function analysis by EPR spectroscopy
  6. Alveolar macrophage
  7. ANGPTL8
  8. Antiglucocorticoid
  9. Apoptosis
  10. Antonio Arnaiz-Villena
  11. Arsenic biochemistry
  12. ABC transporter
  13. Autoimmune disease
  14. Axon guidance
  15. BCAS3
  16. Biotechnology
  17. C9orf3
  18. Calcium signaling in cell division
  19. Cardiac muscle
  20. Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide
  21. CEBPB
  22. Chorionic villus sampling
  23. CHUK
  24. Class A basic helix-loop-helix protein 15
  25. Collagen, type IV, alpha 1
  26. Cyclin-dependent kinase 2
  27. De novo gene birth
  28. Netrin receptor DCC
  29. DNA ligase 3
  30. DSCAM
  31. Early prostate cancer antigen-2
  32. Garth Ehrlich
  33. EP300
  34. Epigenetics
  35. FAM162A
  36. Florigen
  37. Free fatty acid receptor 4
  38. Galectin-9
  39. Gasotransmitter
  40. Gene-for-gene relationship
  41. Genetically modified organism
  42. GPR132
  43. H+, Na+-translocating pyrophosphatase family
  44. HEPN1
  45. HHV Latency Associated Transcript
  46. HYAL1
  47. Hypoxia-inducible factor
  48. IFI16
  49. Inorganic pyrophosphatase
  50. Large tumor antigen
  51. Let-7 microRNA precursor
  52. List of phylogenetics software
  53. Long non-coding RNA
  54. LOXL2
  55. Lymphocyte expansion molecule
  56. MED12
  57. MED24
  58. Mesenchymal stem cell
  59. MicroRNA
  60. Migration-inducting gene 7
  61. Mir-31
  62. Mir-133 microRNA precursor family
  63. Mir-192/215 microRNA precursor
  64. MiR-203
  65. Mir-802 microRNA precursor family
  66. Msh homeobox 2
  67. MTDH
  68. Neurogenins
  69. Non-coding RNA
  70. Non-mevalonate pathway
  71. Nuclear receptor coactivator 1
  72. Nuclear receptor coactivator 2
  73. Nuclear receptor coactivator 3
  74. Nuclear receptor coregulators
  75. Paracrine signaling
  76. Pericyte
  77. PHLPP
  78. Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) depolymerase
  79. Prostaglandin EP1 receptor
  80. Protein inhibitor of activated STAT
  81. RAP1B
  82. Regeneration in humans
  83. Reprimo
  84. Ribonuclease L
  85. RNA interference
  86. ROCK1
  87. Séralini affair
  88. SKP2
  89. Slit-Robo
  90. SMARCC2
  91. Somatostatin receptor 2
  92. Sphingosine kinase 1
  93. SRA1
  94. Stem cell
  95. Steroidogenic acute regulatory protein
  96. STK3
  97. Subtelomere
  98. SUCNR1
  99. SUPT16H
  100. TIMD4
  101. TP53-inducible glycolysis and apoptosis regulator
  102. Transformation/transcription domain-associated protein
  103. TSC2
  104. TSG101
  105. Unconventional myosin-Va

If the citation is no longer reliable, then the article needs to be updated, which could be as minor as the removal/replacement of the citation with a reliable one, to rewriting an entire section that was based on flawed premises. If the citation to a retracted paper was intentional, like in the context of a controversy noting that a paper was later retracted, you can replace {{retraction|...}} with {{retraction|...|intentional=yes}}/{{expression of concern|...}} with {{expression of concern|...|intentional=yes}}/{{Erratum|...}} with {{Erratum|...|checked=yes}}.

I put the list of articles within the scope of WP:MCB in collapsed sections. Any help you can give with those are greatly appreciated. Feel free to remove/strike through those you've dealt with. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

This is great. Thank you. I've always wondered how we deal with retracted articles and now you've presented at least some alerting automation. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:48, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

PACSIN1

In 2019 an editor made some fairly substantial changes to PACSIN1. I removed some obvious vandalism and a partial reference, but this article needs the attention of a subject matter expert. 76.14.122.5 (talk) 19:55, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, I've taken a moment to smooth it out. ― Synpath 17:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Infobox genome is linking to incorrect genome lists on NCBI

Hi all,

As per the Infobox genome talk page, it appears a recent NCBI change has broken the links produced by the Infobox genome template. My talk page comment goes into more detail, but in summary: NCBI is removing the Genome resource, replacing it with the Datasets resource; the Infobox genome template links to the old Genome resource when given a taxId argument; the template now links to incorrect genome lists on some pages (e.g.: the box on Chimpanzee now incorrectly links to a genome listing for Impatiophila pipa). Not all pages are affected (e.g., NCBI automatically redirects the link on Bonobo to the correct genome list), but many are. I imagine there's a risk all the links could stop working if/when NCBI completely deprecates the Genome resource.

Note that the taxId field in the template actually expects a genome ID (and this is what articles have been using for this field). This is at the crux of the problem, as these genome IDs appear to no longer be used. When infobox links still work, it's because the NCBI silently redirects the link to one using the organism's taxonomy ID.

I can think of three ways to fix the problem; all would require updating each article using the Infobox with new IDs, so I wanted to talk about which solution is best before jumping in and making all those changes.

  1. Change the infobox to link to the reference genome only; replace genome IDs on all articles with reference genome IDs. Right now, on pages where it's still working properly, the Infobox links to a list of all the genomes NCBI has available. E.g.: for Bonobo, the NCBI genome page lists 8 genomes, with the reference genome at the top. We could instead update the taxId on every organism's page by replacing the genome ID with the reference genome ID (for Bonobo, changing to taxId=NHGRI_mPanPan1-v2.0_pri) and change the URL the template uses to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/genome/{{{taxId}}} (resulting in this link for Bonobo).
  2. Keep the infobox behavior of linking to genome lists; replace genome IDs on all articles with taxonomy IDs. If we think it's valuable to link users to a list of all the available genomes rather than just the reference, we could instead replace the genome IDs on all pages with the taxonomy IDs (for Bonobo, we'd remove taxId=10729 and replace with taxId=9597). We'd change the URL the template uses to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/genome/?taxon={{{taxId}}} (resulting in this link for Bonobo).
  3. Link to the NCBI Taxonomy page instead of directly linking to genome data; replace genome IDs on all articles with taxonomy IDs. We could instead link to the NCBI taxonomy pages, which give a short summary of the organism. This includes a link to the genome list & a link directly to the reference genome. This is technically not a link to a genome dataset anymore, but I believe this is the closest behavior to how our links worked before the NCBI change - and it does still provide easy access to the genome data (including a download button that directly links to the reference genome). We'd change the genome ID on all pages with the taxonomy ID (like option #2) and change the URL in the template to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/taxonomy/{{{taxId}}} (resulting in this link for Bonobo).

Any thoughts on which option is best, or other options I haven't thought of? Of note, there are ~62 articles using this Infobox that would need to be updated to the new IDs no matter what option is picked; not an insurmountable number but not so few that changing them all would be quick & trivial. — nmael talk 14:38, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

A typical genome infobox contains a link to NCBI and at least three bits of information: ploidy, genome size, and number of chromosomes. I think that ploidy and the number of chromosomes are bits of information that should be in the main body of the article. The size of the genome is not a fixed number, it changes from year to year as more of a genome is sequenced and annotated. I would argue that putting this number in an infobox gives it too much credence.
I would also argue that the best link to sequenced genomes is the Ensembl site and not NCBI. For example, here's the Ensembl link to the chimpanzee genome. Note that it gives the genome size as 3,231 Mb and not 3,323 Mb as in the genome infobox. It also says that there are 23,534 protein-coding genes and 9,710 non-coding genes and this data conflicts with what's written in the article on chimpanzee.
I suggest a 4th solution, delete all genome infoboxes. Alternatively, someone could replace all the NCBI links with Ensembl links then review and update the genome sizes of all infoboxes every few months. Genome42 (talk) 16:38, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
While I think option 3 provides a more informative wrapping around links to genomes per taxon, option 1 actually would link to a genome as you would expect for the field NCBI genome ID. The field label should probably be updated to NCBI reference genome ID or similar. I also see no reason not to exclude linking to Ensembl or any other database as long as the statistics in the box are of the linked genome.
I think using an Infobox to pull out (or duplicate) common measures of genetic material from the body text is generally helpful and is especially useful for hosting external links to databases. I support keeping the infobox around.
Things like base counts would be accurate/stable as long as the genome is sequenced with complete coverage and high confidence. I'm more familiar with bacterial genomes where that kind of thing is more common, so I'm not sure how realistic that tends to be for eukaryotic reference genomes. Surely, cutting off those numbers at two significant figures would make the estimates close enough for general purposes and pretty stable over time. Same for coding vs. non-coding genes. ― Synpath 02:01, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Standardizing The Sections of Protein Articles

I noticed that the example protein articles referenced in the protein article style guide do not follow the recommended sections layout. Should there be a task to standardize these articles?

I'm working on the Tumor Necrosis Factor article and wondered if it should be structured consistently with the other protein articles.

Example articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonadotropin-releasing_hormone AdeptLearner123 (talk) 06:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Style guide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Molecular_Biology/Style_guide_(gene_and_protein_articles)#Sections — Preceding unsigned comment added by AdeptLearner123 (talk • contribs) 06:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Task force for Structural Biology

Structural biology lacks any type of wikiproject, at least from what I can find. The core articles surrounding structural biology are scattered, and need a lot of coordinated work done to them. Any thoughts on this? Niashervin (talk) 03:36, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Pentose phosphate pathway, chemokines, myokines categories

Please leave your comments in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2024_September_4#Category:Pentose_phosphate_pathway. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:18, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 September 12#Category:Pentose phosphate pathway. We would really appreciate your input; I do not think any CFD regulars are experts in molecular biology. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 15:56, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

New article that might be relevant to this project

I have recently made a new article, rhizoplast, a cellular structure found mainly on protists and some fungi. I am not a member of this WikiProject so I thought I would notify it here so that the proper importance assessment can be made. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Catalytic triad

Catalytic triad has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:04, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 11 § Ro (antigen). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:00, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

"In enzymology, a dihydroxyphenylalanine ammonia-lyase (EC 4.3.1.11, entry deleted) is a non-existing enzyme that catalyze"

Dihydroxyphenylalanine ammonia-lyase says it doesn't exist and the KEGG entry agrees. What is the normal protocol for such articles? JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 19:09, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a difficult decision. Delete the entire article. Genome42 (talk) 15:43, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
And done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:24, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Zoonotic origins of COVID-19#Requested move 14 December 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPathtalk 14:24, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I have been reading some fairly remarkable reports regarding TNIK inhibitors in late stage clinical trials, and thought I might ask some of the article authors with greater technical understanding of the field to expand on this. Looking at the article history, I was surprised to find that this article was created by a bot, and almost every edit to the article has been expansion or maintenance by another bot, or by a passing-by gnoming editor. It would be nice to see some real work done by some actual human hands, before we get to the point where AI takes over writing everything anyway. BD2412 T 18:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry to report that what you've uncovered is the norm rather than the exception. It's exactly as you suggested, not enough hands here to cover the huge topics of molecular biology. There are many genes/proteins that have attracted 10+ times more coverage than TNIK and yet we have just a lousy little article (e.g. B7-H3, TROP-2, CLDN18, Nectin-4, all of which are the targets of dozens of drugs in clinical trials and some FDA approved). Apologies for using the opportunity to whine, but I suppose I'd suggest (A) hold your molecular biologists tightly; we should make a concerted effort to recruit folks who show up at AfC, student projects, et al., and (B) you could try posting at WT:MED, perhaps someone interested in pulmonary fibrosis would be willing to take a stab at it. I'll add it to my list, but I'm on a cancer kick right now, so I might not get to it for a while. Ajpolino (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Fair enough, although I understand that this is also being looked at in the cancer space (though perhaps everything is). BD2412 T 23:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I'd like to offer another perspective. I don't think there should be a Wikipedia article on TNIK or on hundreds of other genes. Wikipedia is not the place for such detail; besides, there are much more important tasks that need to be accomplished in order to clean up the mess of biology articles on Wikipedia. Let's concentrate on fixing articles on the fundamentals so that they are up-to-date and easy to understand.
If the article on TNIK really is AI generated then I recommend deletion. The current versions of AI are incapable of generating scientifically correct information. They are heavily influenced by misinformation and disinformation on the internet. In fact, we (molecular biologists) are partly responsible for some of that misinformation since we haven't been correcting existing articles on Wikipedia. Genome42 (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
@Genome42: The article was bot-generated — in 2008 — rather than "AI"-generated. Basically, we used to have a lot of bots that scraped public-domain databases and created articles from information in those databases. Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of articles that were made this way, mostly about athletes, remote villages, obscure species, and the like. For the record, though, I tend to think that we should have articles on genes, as these are fundamental to our existence. BD2412 T 16:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Are you defending BOT-generated articles on human genes that were created from public information dating back to 2008? Why?
You say that we should have articles on genes because they are fundamental to our existence. I assume you only mean human genes, right? There are close to one million different genes in the biosphere - do you really think we need a Wikipedia article for every one?
As for human genes, there are about 19,500 protein-coding genes. What's the point of having outdated, possibly incorrect, articles for each one since hardly anyone is ever going to read them?
We don't know how many non-coding genes there are but what we do know is that there are far more speculative non-coding genes (especially for lncRNAs) than genuine genes. The number of such speculative genes exceeds 100,000. What about those? Genome42 (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I see no reason why we could not have an article on each of 19,500 protein-coding genes. I am dubious of the assertion that 2008 databases are automatically "outdated, possibly incorrect"; I would be interested to know if you have examples of errors stemming from them, or are just assuming. You are, of course, welcome to nominate TNIK for deletion, if you think it should be deleted. BD2412 T 23:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I think we should have articles on genes that are well-covered in reliable sources (there are several recent reviews focusing on TNIK); we just need the manpower to keep those articles up-to-date (not sure how we get there). I don't think we should have articles on genes that aren't well-covered in reliable sources (arbitrary example GLB1L3); these can redirect to an article on the gene family if needed. There's a large grey area in-between those two groups that I don't have a strong opinion on. Ajpolino (talk) 19:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm a biochemist/molecular biologist and I've been working in this area for 56 years. I've never heard of TNIK. I don't care about TNIK.
Who's going to make the decision that a given gene is "well-covered"? I agree that there are some genes in some species that deserve a Wikipedia article of their own but let's not get carried away. It's pretty easy to decide on the genes that we absolutely need to cover. We should ignore all the others unless there's someone who wants to put in the time and effort to write a decent article.
Let me give you an example of the mess we're in. Pyruvate dehydrogenase is a very important metabolic enzyme but the article doesn't even come close to informing readers about its importance and it completely ignores the evolutionary history of this crucial enzyme. The important enzymes that share a common ancestor aren't mentioned. I suspect the article was created by a BOT - there's only two references from the last 17 years.
The human version of this enzyme is encoded by eight genes; PDHA1, PDHB, DLAT, PDHX, PDP1, PDPK1, PDK2, and PDK4. The last two are the only ones with their own article; for the others you have to look up the name of the enzyme they encode. None of the genes (human or otherwise) are mentioned in the pyruvate dehydrogenase article.
What's the point of having separate articles for each of the subunits/genes?
There's a whole lot of work that needs to be done before we start devoting time and effort to TNIK. Let me remind everyone that a separate article on junk DNA was only created last year and that's a very important topic. Genome42 (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I came here at all because I happened to see coverage of TNIK — and specifically, of the potential for TNIK inhibitors to treat human diseases. Whatever other genes may exist in the genome, the potential for inhibition of a specific gene to treat a specific disease is certainly worth covering. The same reasoning would apply to something like USP1 (which currently contains no information on investigative efforts), or CD47 (which is reasonably well-covered in this respect). BD2412 T 00:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
You say, "Whatever other genes may exist in the genome, the potential for inhibition of a specific gene to treat a specific disease is certainly worth covering."
Why? An online encyclopedia is not required to cover everything under the sun. Surely there has to be some limits to what's on Wikipedia, especially since there are only a handful of editors who are capable of checking molecular biology articles for accuracy.
Wikipedia is already full of inaccurate and misleading articles on molecular biology. Let's concentrate on fixing those instead of looking for excuses to add more.
If you think it's really, really important to add something on TNIK then why not put it in the article on signal transduction or the one on kinase or the one on wnt signalling pathway? All of those articles could use some serious atrention. Genome42 (talk) 21:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
I should qualify that if reliable sources cover the potential for inhibition of a specific gene to treat a specific disease, that is what (by Wikipedia standards) makes it worth covering. I am not a molecular biologist, nor a pathologist or epidemiologist, although my work brings me into contact with these fields once in a while. When I come across a source that says that there is a development with respect to the study of inhibition of a specific gene, it's really not going to occur to me (or, I think, to the average editor) to add this to signal transduction or kinase or wnt signalling pathway, rather than the article on the gene being directly studied. BD2412 T 22:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
BD2421 says, "I am not a molecular biologist, nor a pathologist or epidemiologist ..."
and, "... it's really not going to occur to me (or, I think, to the average editor) to add this to signal transduction or kinase or wnt signaling pathway, rather than the article on the gene being directly studied."
That pretty much sums up one of the main points I've been making. I realize that the Wikipedia culture is skeptical of experts and wants to encourage amateurs to add content based on the latest popular science articles but I think it's time to push back against this culture.
We need to recognize that this culture has created a horrible mess of articles in the fields of molecular biology, genetics, evolution, biochemistry, and genomics. What this means is that Wikipedia is full of misinformation and misleading information. This may have been (barely) tolerable in the past but no longer. Now that AI is relying on Wikipedia for accurate information we need to step up an fix the problem. Genome42 (talk) 16:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
This xkcd comic comes to mind. Wikipedia is written for the average reader, not the average molecular biologist. BD2412 T 02:47, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Exactly. That's why we don't need articles on every detail (e.g. every gene) that might be of interest to molecular biologists and why we need to concentrate on explaining the fundamentals to the average reader.
But here's the problem. You need to be an expert on molecular biology in order to explain the fundamentals correctly. Genome42 (talk) 15:32, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
That's why we rely on sources written by experts. BD2412 T 16:32, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
But Wikipedia editors DO NOT rely on sources written by experts. The policy of Wikipedia is to place more emphasis on secondary sources written for the general public. Genome42 (talk) 21:08, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that experts do not write secondary sources? BD2412 T 21:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Most secondary sources are not written by experts. They are often cobbed from press releases written by publicists. Some science writers are very knowledgeable about their subjects but most are not. One of the main issues on Wikipedia is the proper identification of "reliable sources." Genome42 (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Secondary sources include academic journal articles evaluating the work of other academics, and textbooks for teaching in the field. All of these are generally written by experts. To the extent that an author is not writing about their own personal research or experiments, the source is a secondary source. BD2412 T 18:52, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
You are correct. Sources from the scientific literature (e.g. reviews) or authoritative textbooks should be acceptable reliable sources. Articles in the New York Times and popular science magazines should not. However, it still takes an expert to figure out which reviews and which textbooks represent the scientific consensus.
I've had to fight other editors when I used a textbook definition (of allele and junk DNA) that conflicted with the Oxford dictionary definition. That's a problem. Genome42 (talk) 15:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Protein

Protein has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Protein and Chemical Modelling

@Emw I don't recall if I pay you to post it to do this but you are failing to credit me for the models you've posted. You are not the only one but it appears to have spun the news and is misleading value wise as the storage for the jpgs which are really from quantum computations are jpgs that are very large being they are photos videos and typically experiments in one lowercase ".jpg" format, and were unpacked depending on the need of the end user. Working on the LCOR and visualizing it depended heavily on Wikipedia putting me in touch with those whom were stakeholders of record in biological taxonomy and chemical models based on big math. It seemed the interview process for ourselves to go from the chalk board to clinical results in lockstep was a discovery that exhausted me at the time none, though we are all old now and a failure to be sensitive to the record is something that has industrial repercussion but I'm glad it's over with. It's been some time since I've had to step in and try and figure out what is wrong but there are too many things and having it just online is better than anywhere else but does anyone else here fear that we aren't exactly bonding by contract in failure to acknowledge what the images in question are, what they were supposed to be, what is hidden underneath were living things working happily away full of color and life as hot as the sun? More than ribbons? QMJohannasan (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

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