Talk:Orphan gene

Species name
Schizosaccharomyces cerevisiae is not a species so far as I know, the author may mean Saccharomyces cerevisiae. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Partridgefoot (talk • contribs) 15:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

This article is being rewritten
Given the many recent discoveries related to orphan genes and an increased recognition of their significance, this page could benefit from a rewrite by an expert. To this end, I was recently invited by PLoS Genetics to write a "Topic Page" on orphan genes. In addition to publication in PLoS Genetics, this Topic Page will replace the current Wikipedia entry. Additional information on Topic Pages may be found here.

The article will be written by Branden Van Oss, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Anne-Ruxandra Carvunis, an expert in the field of de novo gene birth at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. Dr. Carvunis will provide substantial feedback and editing throughout the process. We will seek to provide a review of the current state of the field, focusing on newer developments. The article will focus on some of the topics in the existing article (e.g. mechanisms of orphan gene evolution) but in much greater depth, and will also address aspects not covered in the current article (e.g. unanswered questions in the field).

The problem is that orphan genes are lineage specific and defy the current ideas of step-by-step darwinian evolution. So, this must be exlained in detail. De novo evolution is an oxymoron and cannot be addressed by darwinism. So, a preloaded evolutionary hypothesis should be included, here.

We welcome community feedback throughout this process. In addition to the talk page, if there are any questions or suggestions, please contact me at sva5@pitt.edu. Jogmiez (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Welcome, . Be aware that other editors will very likely continue to make changes, especially if they notice issues of formatting, wikilinking or referencing. It may also be worth mentioning that Wikipedia is for a general audience so the style should not be more technical than, say, an article in Scientific American. If it's essential to mention something very technical, please take care to add an explanatory gloss, a wikilink to another article, an example or possibly all three. Straight replacement of the existing (quite well-cited) text is not necessarily the best approach and could be controversial, specially if the current material is not wrong. "Much greater depth" and "unanswered questions" are both matters to be handled very carefully on Wikipedia; speculation would be considered original research, which is not allowed, unless cited to a reliable source (presumably the PLOS topic page in this case), and even then it should be brief. All the best (and I'm happy to help), Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * In the end, ended up contributing to the De novo gene birth article rather than here. I agree that these notices should only be understood as letting people know intent, rather than taking any sort of ownership of a page. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 07:29, 5 July 2019 (UTC)