Talk:Lanthanide probes

Untitled
Hello there, I am a Wikipedia editor. What do you want to learn today. Rahman437 (talk) 16:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I want to learn everything. Rahman437 (talk) 16:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you tried to read the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Rahman437 (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments
Hi Rahman, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to comment earlier. My computer is currently on its way out and its kept me from doing much work. I gave some comments, though I could not write them all out because I may give you too much to read. I think this hopefully will make the process easier:


 * It appears that you have taken on a really extensive topic. I think it might be easier if you were to isolate information specifically geared towards your topic, and shorten information that could belong on their separate Wikipedia articles. For example, instrumentation could possibly be left to simply referencing devices that they are used in, as opposed to having a discussion about added benefits of some devices over others, and how they work.
 * What does "fixation of nucleic acid structures" mean? I personally don't know what that means as a biochemist off the top of my head, which means that it may not be understandable to an average reader.
 * "that diketone complex" means that a diketone complex was introduced, but in the sentences above one has not been introduced. Perhaps mention where it came from? Or show a structure.
 * Remember to italicize organism Genus + species names. I also got a suggestion from a wikipedia editor that spelling the whole organism name is better than abbreviating because someone may not know what the short form is for.
 * Maybe write out the names of the (Europium (III)) vs. Eu(III)? or Eu^(3+) so that a new reader would pick it up quickly? Maybe this is nit-picky.
 * For "time-resolved luminescent (TRL) immunoassays," can you link to a wikipedia article for this? If there isn't one, consider omitting it maybe? Just because it sounds very specific, and without an explanation it may become confusing.
 * Maybe consider using sub-headings within each category? For visual organization. For example, for techniques, you can have heterogeneous and homogeneous as separate headings. (===== homogeneous methods =====) with 5 equal signs instead of 2
 * I would avoid statements where your opinion may be construed as being included, for example " Screening tools for the development of new cancer therapies are in high demand" <-- the "in high demand."
 * In the applications section it appears that you are writing as lanthanum enthusiast (which is totally cool), which is problematic again because it appears to make you less impartial in the article. Be careful about making it sound amazing, just present the facts as they are.
 * In your Applications section, please link the protein families, and techniques to wikipedia articles because there's quite a bit of info there!
 * I would also suggest putting in citations for every line, as opposed to including them after a paragraph so ambiguity about where information comes from can be addressed.
 * Summary: I think you have a lot of information as is, and that you should edit what you have down instead of working to create a really large wikipedia article (for the sake of finishing by friday).

Harris.qureshi (talk) 01:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Ln ionic radii
The "mechanism" section states: "Lanthanides can be used because their small size" which isn't traditionally true. Lanthanides are generally quite large (80-120pm radius) while biologically relevant transition metals are generally <80pm in radius. This is, for example, why Ln ions can accommodate unusually large coordination numbers (8+) while first row, biologically relevant metals usually have coordination numbers ≤6.

Ln ions seem to be small enough to displace ions in these sensing applications, but it is inaccurate (or at least, not accurate in spirit) to attribute this to size, as lanthanides are larger than the transition metals typically found in proteins (though roughly similar in size to calcium). I imagine the driving forces are

1) Entropic factors (Ln ions have large solvation shells that will cause larger entropic driving forces from chelation)

2) Their higher charge and innate hardness which gives them strong binding to anionic oxygen donors such as the carboxylates found in many active sites.

The former explains their ability to displace transition metals, while the latter explains their ability to displace calcium. This is, however, somewhat speculative based on my personal experience with f-element chemistry. Large ionic size and ionicity ("hardness" from a HSAB perspective) are typically what drives most lanthanide chemistry. Describing Ln ions as small gives a false impression that they are small in general, rather than "small enough" for this application.

That being said this was an informative article, I just wanted to point out a nuanced issue that doesn't impede general understanding. However it's important for continuity between articles because Ln ions arent correctly described as small, and it provides an incomplete representation of how f-element chemistry is uniquely situated for biological fluorescent probes.

Carterhcole (talk) 21:21, 6 May 2019 (UTC)