Talk:Torula herbarum/Archive 1

Anniescng's Peer Review
I think you have a really strong draft! There's a ton of information on Torula herbarum, and you've presented it in a cohesive order. The only thing missing from your article is a lead section that summarizes the key points of your article. Here's a link that might be helpful: How_to_create_and_manage_a_good_lead_section History and taxonomy Growth and morphology Physiology Habitat and ecology Diseases in humans Pharmaceutical applications References Papers
 * What are the differences between the Monilia genus and Torulaceae genus? Was there a key difference that prompted Torula herbarum to be renamed and reclassified?
 * I think this section was really well done! You found a lot of good information, and it's clearly presented. One small thing- "Mycelium," "Conidiphores," etc. don't need to be italicized.
 * I think this section may fit better before "Growth and morphology" because most of the information presented is an introduction to your fungus.
 * Your first point on Torula herbarum being an "aquatic-terrestrial hypomycete" may be more suitable in your "Habitat and ecology" section, because it's information about where the fungus grows.
 * I like that you mention the formation of biocompounds; does T. herbarum form them as part of its metabolism? Perhaps also briefly mention in this section that these biocompounds can potentially be used in pharmaceutical applications, since you elaborate on this in a later section.
 * It may be helpful to link "lignin"
 * What does a "feminine" fungus mean?
 * I think you did a good job outlining geographic locations and environmental conditions that Torula herbarum has been isolated from. It might be useful to mention that it has been identified indoors (Bogomolova, E. V. 2003; Allergy and Allergen Immunotherapy book linked below) since you later talk about cases of allergy caused by the fungus.
 * I couldn't really find any additional information about Torula herbarum causing allergic reactions in humans, but I found a record of it as an indoor fungus (I linked an online preview of the book below). I believe this is supported by your Bogomolova, E. V source, which states that fungus was recorded as allergy-causing after being identified indoors.
 * Properties of herbarin: Thi et al. (2015) did a general test for antimicrobial activities, and Heimberger et al. (2015) looked at the antioxidant properties in an in vivo model. Heimberger's paper is interesting because it appears as though there are two forms of Herbarin, one of which has higher activity than the other. Both I believe were found to have high toxicity in zebrafish. I wonder if the cytotoxic effects found in the breast cancer cell line by Osman et al. (2018) may have been influenced by in vivo toxicity?
 * I only found one other article discussing anti-cancer properties of herbarin derivatives; it looks like pharmaceutical properties of herbarin are only recently being explored. The review by Naysmith et al. (2017) looks at different derivatives of herbarin and discusses biological activity (if any). One point that I thought was relevant was that O-phenethylherbarin, in contrast to herbarin and other derivatives, have different biological properties.
 * I think for your Osman et al. (2018) reference, you may have added an additional space in front of the curly brackets, so it's showing up as an error. The doi link also shows up as an error; try linking it as just "10.1016/j.sajb.2018.05.018" rather than "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2018.05.018"
 * Heimberger et al. (2015): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25690788
 * Naysmith et al. (2017): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27759131
 * Thi et al. (2015): https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/7070709
 * Book: Allergy and Allergen Immunotherapy (https://www.crcpress.com/Allergy-and-Allergen-Immunotherapy-New-Mechanisms-and-Strategies/Singh/p/book/9781771885423)

Garny's Peer Review
Hi Dee.Ou,

You have a lot of good details in your outline so far. Here are some things you could do to expand and organize:


 * Don’t forget to include an introduction/lead using the most important points about your fungus. It would be smart to include the date of discovery, the scientist who names it, as well as a quick description about the morphology of its spores, habitat, and disease targets.


 * under History and Taxonomy:
 * It would be a good idea to go in depth in this section about the different names this species was given until Link’s Torula herbarum was established in 1809
 * Why was the species changed from the Monilia genus to Torulaceae?
 * What are the physical differences they found between them?
 * What experiments were done to figure this out? What cultures were used?
 * Under this heading you go into detail about the conidia of Torula; instead state the brief differences between the various discoveries and continue the description under “morphology”
 * Here is a helpful link that talks about the development of Torula herbarum’s blastoconidia:
 * https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pubmed/1201513


 * You should add in links to Wikipedia articles throughout.
 * Do this for the following: Monilia, Torula, hyphomycetes, conidia, thallus, Mycelium, dematiaceous (links to black yeast), Lignin, Alnus, Aceuthobium, Bambusa, Impatiens, Juncus, Mesembryanthemum, Pinus, Yucca, Hepatitis A and topoisomerase, as well as any other terms you add later on that readers would need more background to understand


 * You should definitely include pictures of your fungus
 * Wikicommons has 2 pictures of it already, here is the link:
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Torula_herbarum


 * Under the section: Growth and Morphology
 * You have italicized the beginning words in a few sentences in this section that do not need to be italicized: Mycelium, Conidiophores, Conidiogenous cells and conidia


 * You mention your fungus thrives on plant and soil debris. I believe you would benefit from one of the books I used from Professor Scott’s library on fungal species. It had good information on history, habitat and anamorph and teleomorph morphology for my fungus. This is the citation:
 * Domsch, K.H.; Gams, Walter; Andersen, Traute-Heidi (1980). Compendium of soil fungi (2nd ed.). London, UK: Academic Press. ISBN 9780122204029.


 * For the section Disease in humans:
 * Are the allergic reactions this fungus causes fatal?
 * Are there treatments?


 * For the section: Pharmaceutical applications
 * Here is an article that describes the isolation of other metabolites from Torula herbarum not mentioned in your notes
 * https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/antibiotics1968/24/4/24_4_245/_pdf/-char/en
 * you may also find this article useful as it talks about the isolation of one of the metabolites you mention, o-methylherbarin
 * https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pubmed/4859426

--Garny Kafessian (talk) 04:39, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

johnvsjohn86's Peer Review
General Comment
 * good job researching! I think you found a lot of information for your fungus and your points all mostly really concise and straight forward
 * some details are missing but that's understandable since it's only an outline

History and taxonomy
 * What is the difference between the Monilia and the Monilinia genues, and why was it later be put into the Torulaceae genus?

Growth and morphology
 * You’ve included a lot of information for this section, and it is very well done! The only advice I can give you in this section is that many points can be merged together, e.g. conidia are constricted by the septa & are dry chains
 * The temperature range for the growth of the organism is around 24~28 degree Celsius[1]

Physiology
 * Being aquatic-terrestrial hyphomycete and dematiaceous is more suitable to be put into the “Growth and morphology” section
 * Being an herb clinging fiber is more of an morphology rather than physiology
 * What are secondary colonizers?
 * What does “feminine” fungus mean? What are the forms of reproduction in Torula herbarum?
 * Decomposers can also be termed saprotrophs (leaf decomposers)

Habitat and ecology
 * You can include a few examples of the countries that it is abundant in
 * Here is an article talking about indoor environment and its management regarding your fungus [2]

Disease in humans
 * Allergy can be in many forms, what type of allergic reaction does this fungus cause?
 * Here is an article focusing on the respiratory allergy regarding your fungus [3]

References
 * 1. Kadkol MV, Gopalkrishnan KS, Narasimhachari N. 1971. Isolation and characterization of naphthaquinone pigments from Torula herbarum (Pers.). Herbarin and dehydroherbarin. J Antobiot (Tokyo). 24(4): 245-248.
 * 2. Khan H, Karuppayil M. 2012. Fungal pollution of indoor environments and its management. Saudi Journal of Biological Science. 19(4): 405-426.
 * 3. Twaroch, T. E., Curin, M., Valenta, R., & Swoboda, I. (2015). Mold allergens in respiratory allergy: from structure to therapy. Allergy, asthma & immunology research, 7(3), 205-20.

Some suggestions
Medmyco (talk) 19:51, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * references look OK
 * lots of good information
 * try to put some of the technical terms into more common language, e.g., macronematous, micronematous, cupulate, monoblastic, polyblastic, dematiaceous, etc.
 * do not capitalize the species epithet, “herbarum”, only the genus name gets capitalized
 * geni is not a word, the singluar is genus, plural is genera
 * a few links you can make, Mediterranean Sea, 'Alnus, Aceuthobium, etc., Hepatitis A virus,, HSP90, etc.
 * I made a few edits in your text...