Talk:Botryotrichum murorum/Archive 1

Nav's Peer Review
Hello Usucrose!

I really enjoyed looking over your article! Your lead gives a good introduction of your fungus, and isn't redundant, but you might want to add a little more information as you describe it being both pathogenic and medically significant.

You mention in your "Taxonomy and discovery" section that there are two facultative synonyms for C. murorum but there doesn't seem to be an explanation of what a facultative synonym actually is. It could be something that I should know and I might be completely oblivious to it, but if not maybe it warrants an explanation?

In your "Ecology" section, you list a variety of media that Botryotrichum murorum can grow in, but don't go into too much detail as to the specifics of their growth culture in the different media. In one of your resources, "Fungi associated with the skin of a southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) from South Africa" it says that, specifically in MEA, "Chaetomium murorum isolates revealed violet-blue to black spherical to ovoidal ascomata". I think maybe this would be important to put in your "Morphology" section. This stands out to me because they included this in their test of whether or not C. mororum is able to metabolize keratin or not.

In your "Medically significant mytotoxins" you describe that the secondary metabolites C. murorum produces have selective cytotoxicity towards some human protozoan parasitic pathogens but do not specify what type of medicinal properties they have. I would add that they are used in antibiotics.

In your reference section, for the resource "Antiprotozoal Activities of Heterocyclic-Substituted Xanthones from the Marine-Derived Fungus Chaetomium sp", you put September 2008 in parentheses as part of your citation, but it looks like the publication date was August 2008. Also, for some of the books you use such as "Dictionary of antibiotics and related substances" and "Chemistry and Toxicology of Chaetomium Mycotoxins", there are specific pages that you find information from in those books. For the Chemistry and Toxicology book, I found the information on page 129; and for the Dictionary, I found the information on page 411.

The pictures you included are really informative and add a nice illustration to your description of it's morphology! Hopefully my comments help you with your final product! Navlall (talk) 19:47, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review - Mahreen
Hi Usucrose, you did a good job outlining your article! Here are a few suggestions: Overall, you've done a great job on the draft outline of this article and I enjoyed reading through it! You're on your way to writing a great wiki article - I hope these suggestions are useful! MahreenK (talk) 17:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Your lead section is clear and concise, and I like that it gives the reader a brief overview of your fungus. It might be useful to provide a brief overview of the fungus' growth conditions (psycrophilic) and life cycle.
 * You provide some great background in your taxonomy section! It does get a little confusing to follow because of all the synonyms, and because it almost seems as if each "discovery" is a different fungus. Perhaps arrange this chronologically, and when you write it out as a paragraph for the final wiki article, I would suggest trying to make it flow better. One thing that I am confused about, is whether many scientists (Corsa, Bainier, Czerepanova) discovered the fungus at different times and simply named them different things, or whether they knew the fungus previously existed but chose to reclassify it.
 * Structuring it like this makes it easier for the reader to follow along: "The fungus was first described under the name Chaetomium muromum by Carl Joseph Corda, who isolated from a wall in Prague in 1837. M.G. Bainier later discovered the fungus as a new species and named it Cheatomium undulatum..." etc.
 * It would also be helpful to add why the fungus was reclassified to a different genus in 2016 - did the phylogenetic analysis reveal that its genome was more closely related to members of the Botryotrichum genus? Was it initially classified in the Chaetomium genus because of its growth/morphology/habitat?
 * This link might help expand this section to briefly talk about how the genus Cheatomium was established, and how it is different from the Botryotrichum genus.
 * The link to the Botryotrichum page does not exist, so you should just remove it.
 * Your ecology section has some great details! I would just try to be more concise with sentences, ie. instead of "It is reported to be isolated from", just say "It had been isolated from" - this just makes it easier to read!
 * Some studies show that your fungus has also been isolated from bird feces, and it was identified as a coprophilous fungi in Iran: https://www.creamjournal.org/pdf/Cream_6_3_9.pdf
 * It has also been isolated from sugarcane: https://www.cabi.org/ISC/abstract/20113137014
 * I would also be careful of using words like "suggesting" (in your last bullet point) - you do have a reference so it's clear that you're not just making inferences, but because of wiki policy, it would be better to just state that experiments show that this fungus can be utilized in degradation biotechnology.
 * This article also provides information on the various enzymes produced by B. murorum that help it degrade cellulose, including cellulase, xylanase, peroxidase and laccase: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=jas.2012.1909.1916
 * Your morphology section is extremely detailed and well written! The only thing I might critique is your comparison of B. murorum to other species in the Chaetomiaceae genus (in your second bullet point). This might get confusing because your fungus was moved from this genus to Botryotrichum so it might be useful to add whether its growth and morphology are similar to other fungi in that genus instead.
 * The pathology section was a very interesting read! You state that it is frequently found in indoor environments and an also be found on human food - can inhaling the fungus (mold) or ingesting it also cause an infection, or is it only through superficial wounds?
 * Although you provide great detail about the fungal infection, there is only one reference used throughout the pathology section - were there any more cases recorded of this fungus causing an infection in humans?

Some suggestions

 * references and formatting look OK
 * you should explain what a facultative synonym is if you want to use the term (I think there’s a wiki link to this as well)
 * theatrically capable?
 * lots of good content
 * “a Chinese female farmer...” don’t describe particular cases, try instead to generalize, e.g., “This species was reported to cause brownish, scaley skin lesions in an agricultural worker.(ref)”
 * well done so far!

Medmyco (talk) 19:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)