Talk:Connexin

Minor comments after a first read
Excellent! Thanks for working on this. I've only read it once through, but here's what I noticed: Keesiewonder 11:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC) Tgru001 (talk) 09:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC)Great start for this article. Haven't had time to look at all the detail but the first image on the right Biggapjunct2.png has a problem. The image shows a group of 6 connexins making a connexon rather than a picture of a connexin as the name suggests. It takes at least two connexons or 12 connexins to make a gap junction. The more conservative definitions of a gap junction require a group of connexon pairs pulling a larger area of membrane together to form the classical gap which the junctions are named after.
 * I'd love to see a larger image for the graphic in the structure section, but when I try to access it ... I don't get it. I'm not wise enough yet to know how to fix this, so I'll let you do it!
 * When reading I removed and added some commas plus other edit things ... hope you don't mind. If I need to read style pages, let me know.
 * I'm confused about this in the nomenclature section: "e.g. Cx26 is the connexin protein of 26 KAMU." A link is provided for the AMU portion of KAMU only. But what is KAMU? (Camus? Ha!) I wonder what the style pages say about e.g. vs. i.e. I'm semi-indoctrinated in APA format. Anyway, maybe a citation would help this section and/or me.
 * IMO, we need a reference for this from the Biosynthesis and Internalization section: "It has been suggested that this short life span allows for more finely regulated physiological processes to take place, such as in the myometrium."
 * Is there a UR-Golgi intermediate compartment??? Or is this equivalent to the ERGIC in the next bit, which then would beg to be ER-GIC?
 * Another bit for your more clever self: A redirect? for "innexins" in the first paragraph, so it doesn't show in red. "Innexin" is nicely set up much later in the function section.
 * At a glance, references #2 and #3 look identical to me ...

Connexins, A Guide. Andrew L. Harris & Darren Locke (Eds)
I'd like to bring your attention to the above, which can be found at www.springer.com/978-1-934115-46-6.

This book is written by a highly selected group of international and renowned authors, each of whom is a specialist in some aspect of connexin channel biology, be it their structure, their function, or their role in normal physiology and disease. It gathers in one place all of the fundamental as well as applied knowledge about the subject.

Importantly, this book was written with the explicit goal of being both ‘a textbook’ and ‘a reference book’. It was written and thoroughly edited so as to be of ongoing use to all people - for example, those who work in the connexin field, and who work in the many areas of biological, biophysical and biomedical science – there are no aspects of human development, physiology, pathology and disease in which connexin channels do not play important roles. As such, there is a widespread audience for this information in the academic biological and medical research and teaching communities.

Connexin channels typically form structures that connect one cell to another. However, it has recently been shown that connexin channels also form membrane pores in cell membranes to allow biological and non-biological molecules to pass into/out of individual cells. Most cells in the body are connected to their immediate neighbors by the former type of connexin channel. These intercellular connexin channels, called gap junction channels, allow signaling molecules to pass from cell to cell, and thus gap junctions mediate a unique, fundamental and important mode of cellular communication. Defects in connexin channels cause a variety of human diseases, including deafness, peripheral nervous system disorders, cardiac/vascular abnormalities, etc.

The connexin field is uncommonly diverse - to the extent that even people within the field employ experimental methods and conceptual frameworks that are unfamiliar to others in the field. In addition, a large number of people outside the field who are quite interested in specific aspects of connexin channel biology and function find it difficult to access the information they desire. This book is being structured to address the needs of both groups, and so be appealing to a broad audience. In keeping with this, the chapter authors do not just present a summary of their own work, they instead synthesize a field, with minimal use of discipline-specific jargon. Each chapter: (a) identifies key scientific questions, (b) explains why they are important within and outside of the immediate context, (c) describes what is known, what is not known, where and why there is controversy.

The first set of chapters cover fundamentals of connexin biology and techniques. People may be interested to know: (a) connexin channel structure-function, (b) connexin channel pharmacology, (c) how to assess junctional coupling, (d) many more - see chapter titles to get some idea of the breadth of coverage. The second set of chapters covers the roles of connexin channels in specific tissues or biological processes. Each of these chapters should be of particular interest to people who work in each system, such as cardiovascular, nervous system, etc.

Almost all aspects of human physiology and the roles that connexins play in tissue processes have been covered – again, it is an extensive and exhaustive guide about connexin channels, and should answer all of the questions you have.

130.219.8.252 (talk) 19:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC) Darren Locke, lockeda@umdnj.edu


 * The full citation can be found here. Bibeyjj (talk) 14:39, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 12:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)