Wikipedia:USEP/Courses/JHU MolBio Ogg FA13/Group 81B

Group 81B
This is a group page for the Johns Hopkins Molecular Biology course. This group will be working on the article TBD.

Use the talk page here to collaborate as a group, when learning to use and navigate Wikipedia, assessing articles, or for any other topic.

Use this page (not the talk page) for article assessments; rationale for selecting an article; etc (as specified in the milestone summary chart.

Please create a new section here for each of those assignments.

Eukaryotic Transcription
The article is regarded as a stub and rated a high level of importance. On this article, there are not enough references for the topic. Of the three references, only one seems to be a good source (due to verifiability). One of the other pages no longer exists and is thus not a good. The other source is from spark notes, which is not in the group of reliable sources like journals, published articles published books etc that are usually used to cite topics on wikipedia. The talk page has barely been visited by only one individual who has also incited experts on the topic to add contributions. Here is a list of some of the articles I will suggest to add more information about this topic.
 * Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Transcription
 * Regulation of Initiation of Eukaryotic Transcription.
 * Eukaryotic Transcription and Translation are Separated in Space and Time.

Histone Octamer
On this article, there are no references, but there seems to be content about the topic. It is also rated as a stub article with a high rating of importance. The talk page also has no communications on how the page may have started or further communications on plans to expand and contribute to the article. Here are a list of articles/books I will suggest to expantiate on this topic.
 * Molecular Biology Of the Gene-Genome Structurem Chromatin Structure and Nucleosome
 * The nucleosomal core histone octamer at 3.1 A resolution: a tripartite protein assembly and a left-handed superhelix

Nondisjunction
The article is listed as one of the genetics stub articles. For such a huge topic in the field of genetics/medicine, there are not enough references on the topic. Only one reference has been cited, and it dates back to 2006. The talk page also has minimal communication by the first and only person who has edited this article. Here are a list of articles/resources I will suggest to add more informbation about this topic.
 * Mitosis, Meiois and Inheritance
 * Homologous Recombination at the Molecular Level
 * The Mechanism of Secondary Nondisjunction in Drosophila melanogaster Females
 * A Model System for Increased Meiotic Nondisjunction in Older Oocytes

Eukaryotic Transcription
If you review the Talk section, this article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale and rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Although there are subsections to the topic, the content is lean. It is at best a short, surface description of a complicated process. The concept is not well explained. Also, very few references are noted. Additionally, there could probably be stronger sources of reference than SparkNotes. There was a comment in the Talk section by a user in 2007 that asks for a paragraph about transcription termination. Here are some references this section could utilize:
 * For eukaryotic transcription process (initiation, elongation and termination) and transcription regulation in eukaryotes, our class textbook is great.
 * Information about the transport of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm should be included. For example, "all movement of molecules and macromolecules between the cytoplasm and the nucleus takes place through nuclear pore complexes (NPCs)."

Cotransporter
If you review the Talk section, this article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale and rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. There were no comments or suggestions made on the Talk page. There is incomplete coverage of the topic. There are no helpful visual aids either. There is a discrete class of proteins that import/export ions and small molecules by using the energy stored in the electrochemical gradient to power the uphill movement of another substance; this is called cotransport. The Solute Carrer Series (SLC) includes the "classical" transporter families and contains 52 SLC genes with almost 400 different human transport-related genes.

Article Selection Rationale
Eukaryotic transcription occupies a central position in molecular biology. It is the sum of the elaborate process that eukaryotic cells use to transcribe genetic information into units of RNA replica. Going by the central dogma of DNA-> RNA-> Protein, the knowledge of eukaryotic transcription is necessary to understand how we eventually get the products from our genetic make-up. This topic holds a great appeal because it is usually at the level of transcription that a lot of regulatory control is exercised. Better understanding of how transcription works in normal cells will improve our understanding of why certain diseases occur due to disruptions or mutations in transcription. In addition, an understanding of transcription in prokaryotes allows for comparison between the two cellular systems, creating a framework to understand the intricacies of the eukaryotic system.

Given the importance of the process, it is a big surprise that Wikipedia does not already have a high quality article dedicated to this topic. Our objective is to provide an outline of the eukaryotic transcription process, catalogue the core components of the transcription machinery, and describe the general principles of transcriptional regulations. Given the large scope of the topic, this will be a challenging article to write. But we are excited about the opportunity and confident that we can make a scholarly contribution to the field. We will consult several textbooks and review articles on how this topic has been covered in the past by the learned pioneers of the field and decide on the best strategy to explain the key concepts in a lucid and concise manner. Since this article is likely to be frequently visited by biology students, we plan to supplement the main text with illustrations and carefully selected references and links. We intend to incorporate what we have learned in this class into the article. The stimulating discussions we have been having should help us anticipate the kind of questions a well-informed reader would ask while reading the article. We believe writing this article will be a uniquely rewarding experience.

Unit 8 Progress Report

 * All of our contributions were prose
 * Modified existing Table of RNA polymerases+ added a reference
 * Added information on transcription initiation based on understanding of process form cited reference

Unit 10 Progress Report

 * All of our contributions were prose
 * New Sections were developed
 * Old sections edited as per suggestions from reviewers

Unit 12 Progress Report

 * All of our contributions were prose
 * New Sections were developed
 * Added 30+ new references. Incorporated the findings from many recent publications

Unit 14 Progress Report

 * Images contributions were made.
 * Grammatical edits were made all through the article
 * Citations were added to existing scientific claims
 * Wiki links added to all sections per reviewer and editor suggestion (user: Klortho, Seanmcaruthers)
 * Some subsections flattened per editor suggestion (user: Klortho)