Wikipedia:Peer review/Gaseous signaling molecules/archive1

Gaseous signaling molecules
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to get some feedback and to improve the article as much as possible. Maybe at some point after your feedback and improvements it will be considered good enough to nominate it at good article nomination page. I'm glad to listen and accept your comments, suggestions, edits, style and language improvements, fact-checking, etc.Roman Bekker (talk) 18:13, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Roman Bekker (talk) 18:13, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Opabinia regalis

Specific thoughts as I'm reading through:
 * The lead needs some cleanup and expansion. The first sentence is really long and would be better split up. Instead of the long list of examples, you could mention a few prominent ones and their biological roles. There's no need for "outlined below"; that's implicit in the structure of a wiki article.
 * The criteria for being a "gasotransmitter" as opposed to a mere "signaling molecule" are still somewhat unclear to me.
 * Oxygen section is empty (and is it really a "signaling molecule"? I suppose...)
 * Carbon dioxide section has some irrelevant information. Keep the article focused on signaling at the molecular level.
 * "NO is one of the few gaseous signalling molecules known..." Aren't you writing an article with twelve subsections for gaseous signaling molecules?
 * Sub-note: "signalling" with two l's here, but just one in the title.


 * Nitric oxide section needs subsections, and a good trim. Some of this material probably belongs in the subarticle.
 * Carbon monoxide functional summary can go, especially with something as hilariously vague as "may play a role as potential therapeutic agent." Again, stay focused on signaling, and leave the other roles of these molecules to their own main articles.
 * Carbon suboxide: which "living organisms" were the polymers found in? Is there any evidence these occur in humans? That very vague "endogenous anticancer protective mechanisms" statement is sourced to one publication in Italian?
 * Hydrogen sulfide: also needs subsections and a trim.
 * Ethylene: same. You could use the existing material to spin off a new subarticle.

Overall comments:
 * The current organization makes it hard to tell which molecules are known to be signaling molecules in mammals, which occur in plants, and which are so far just a few papers' worth of intriguing data and speculation. This should be much more clearly stated - maybe a section at the top with a table summarizing the molecules and which organisms/cell types they occur in. You might even go so far as to restructure the sections so that the organism of interest is the top-level section with relevant molecules as subsections.
 * There's a lot of statements like "some authors have shown", "it was shown that", ("shown" appears 25 times!), "it is known", etc. An encyclopedia article doesn't need to report cases where there's only a handful of equivocal papers out so far and the biology is far from settled knowledge. For one thing, it gets out of date quickly. It's also hard for the reader to get a sense of how these specific observations have been integrated into the knowledge of the field - it starts to read like a collection of facts. I suggest refactoring some of this to cite appropriate review articles, instead or in addition to the primary literature.
 * For the specifically medical claims (including what may/may not cause/cure cancer/aging/acne/whatever), make sure the sources fit the WP:MEDRS guideline, or are reasonably close.
 * There's also a couple of oddball sources in there: Berkeley Test? The Scientific American article is fine to report on news coverage, but it looks like it's used to cite a scientific claim, in which case you can probably find the original paper. The article overall is thoroughly referenced, obviously, but that makes these oddballs stand out.
 * I mentioned this above, but there is a lot of material in here and it would benefit from more attention to summary style. Some of the very specific details about individual molecules can be moved to their own subarticles. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I will work out those issues. Roman Bekker (talk) 15:37, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Comments from BakerStMD

Not having read this page, a priori i think of nitric oxide for vasodilation. Looking forward to learning more.

My comments, a mix of specific and general:
 * Is the extensive list of molecules needed in the intro? I imagine one or more are more interesting, better studied, etc.
 * Don't need last sentence of intro, "more info below". Wiki format is standard. Even the noobs get it.
 * Are there images at the page on the bio activity of NO that could improve the optics of the page here?
 * From my recall bias as a physician, I'm tempted to say you should put NO up top as the most well-known of the gasotransmitters. Failing that, could you order the sections more logically? By relative biological importance? NO, CO2, CO up top maybe?
 * Could you collapse some of the less-studied, poorly understood transmitters into a single section, "ongoing research" with sub-sections for each? That would help someone navigating/reading for reference, rather than someone willing to read the whole essay.
 * For transmitters with other pages dedicated to them, would it be possible to shorten their discussion?
 * Is there not a separate page for the biology of ethylene? if there is, should include link to it as you have elsewhere. Those are some pretty pictures to be hidden down at the bottom of the page! I'm a visual guy here...
 * Looking at the titles of your refs, looks like some are more "secondary" than others. The first one,, looks like a good secondary or tertiary source. However, ref 65 ("Characterization of the macrocyclic carbon suboxide factors as potent Na,K-ATPase and SR Ca-ATPase inhibitors.") looks a little more like primary, original research to me. Looking closer, their methods discuss reagents. That's a bad sign for a secondary source. Secondary sources should be discussing how they queried the literature, not which company supplied their reagents

That's about what I've got for now. Looking over what user:Opabinia said, I agree with everything he/she said. Strong work!

BakerStMD 04:24, 7 April 2015 (UTC)