Talk:Titin

Redirect spelling and copyvio

A few issues about a redirect pointing at this page that I wanted to raise:

• (1) The redirect is: Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylala…. This is possibly spelt incorrectly (the last three letters appear to be wrong).
• (2) Comment from the redirect talk page (which I undeleted and turned into a redirect until it is clear what needs doing here):

  copyvio: Not sure this is really a copyright infringement, as you can't copyright a fact nor a chemical name, and there is no copied content here except the name. DES ^(talk) 22:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• (3) Should we have the full name of proteins on Wikipedia? Some (most) are too long, I think, but how should they be handled and is a truncated name redirect like the one above appropriate (once the spelling is sorted out)? One problem is that truncated ones may start to clash and anyway, no-one would search for those names. The question then comes whether thy should be in the text of the article, and again, the answer seems to be no (verification problems, for a start). I would say link to reliable sites that give the full name and details.

So three questions to answer: (i) Is the content at the page history of the redirect a copyvio? I agree with DES that it probably isn't, but it still doesn't seem like the sort of content Wikipedia can really handle; (ii) Is the current spelling of the redirect correct or not? I'm not sure about this; (iii) How have other full protein names been handled (maybe see how long chemical formulae have been handled)? Carcharoth (talk) 16:03, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

(i) Per DES, not a copyvio. (ii) Regardless of whether the spelling is correct or incorrect, I do not see the point of having an arbitrarily chosen small portion of very long protein name as a redirect. (iii) Full chemical names of small molecules are routinely included in Wikipedia pharmacology articles. On the other hand, the "verbal formula" of proteins and other biopolymers are never used in the scientific literature. Hence I do not see the point of including them in Wikipedia articles. This has been extensively discussed previously on this talk page (see archive) and the consensus has been not to add the full chemical name of titin to this article. Redirects that are appropriate are alternative Q8WZ42 protein names or HUGO TTN gene names. Boghog (talk) 17:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I now have to agonize over whether to suggest deleting the redirect (I very rarely support redirect deletion, but may do so in this case). The current uses of the link can be piped from "Titin", and this article should probably have a small portion of the name included so people realise what this claimed longest word stuff is all about (though there is a case for limiting all that stuff to the longest word page and not having it here). Maybe someone else will nominate the redirect while I agonize about it? :-) Thanks for pointing to the previous discussions - should have found those. Carcharoth (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The article mentions titin's claim to the longest English word and contains a truncated version of the name (first amino acid ^... last amino acid) with a link to the full name here. Hence I think the article already adequately addresses its controversial notability as the longest word. Concerning the redirect, I believe deletion is justified based on WP:R#DELETE: ("7. If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name, it is unlikely to be useful."). Furthermore the title of this redirect only contains the first five amino acids (Met-Thr-Thr-Glu-Ala or MTTEA) of titin and therefore is not specific to titin. There are an infinite number of proteins whose sequence starts with MTTEA. Boghog (talk) 08:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

You've convinced me. I'll nominate it right now. along with several others. Could you check here and both add to the nomination (I will come back here to link to it) any that should be deleted and add any redirects that are missing? Carcharoth (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for nominating the link for deletion to which I have added my support. The remaining links look OK to me. For completeness I have added a few other links that are aliases for either the titin protein or the TTN gene that encodes the protein. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 12:31, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Titin redirects listed at Redirects for discussion

I've started a discussion to address the redirects associated with Titin. Leaving a note here for those who watch this page: redirect discussion. Carcharoth (talk) 11:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Stop already with the full name.

Adding the full name is just stupid and has no practical use. There are versions of it on various userpages such as this one but it has no place on the real wiki. Can we just agree on this one and stop the edit wars? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.85.49 (talk) 06:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It's already been agreed upon, but other IPs keep adding it back. Eagles 24/7 (C) 15:59, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Fuck practical use. It may not have scientific value, but it has a great deal linguistic significance. It is also to many people the most interesting thing that could be on that page. Add the full name. --76.69.87.6 (talk) 02:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Completley agreed on the above. Syntheticalconnections (talk)(my contribs) 18:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. I personally came to the page because of its status as one of the longest words in any language. It's definitely a notable part of the article, and really, isn't that what Wikipedia's about? Ejg930 (talk) 17:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the full chemical name of titin not a word. In addition, one could easily construct much longer non-words (starting with the titin mRNA sequence) or the DNA sequence of chromosome 2 on which the titin gene resides. The later would be orders of magnitude longer than the IUPAC name of the amino acid sequence of titin. By this criteria of name length, which is dubious to start with, the full name of titin cannot be consider notable since it is no where close to the longest chemical name that could be constructed. So what is the point? Boghog (talk) 19:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected for a month due to continued vandalism. Spencer^T♦C 21:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The full name should not be added on this page. Firstly, it lacks notability. Also, it completely screws up the look of the Wikipedia page. It can be added as an external link, as it is now. --Stickee (talk) 02:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Dumb question, but if it lacks notability, why is it noted on several other articles? It's the reason that probably 75% (or more) people click onto this article - it seems just plain stupid to not include it. 50.103.168.170 (talk) 11:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Arguments based on what other web sites contain does not establish notability and is not a valid reason for including material in a Wikipedia article (see WP:OTHERSTUFF). In addition, there has been extensive previous discussion on whether including the full name is appropriate and the consensus is that it is not. Boghog (talk) 21:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I should clarify - I meant that it's included in several other Wikipedia articles. If it's not notable here, why would it be notable in the other topics? Do we need to go into them and remove it? Additionally, while I understand consensus, what does precedent say? Are there any other articles here on Wikipedia that do not include the full name of the subject? 50.103.168.170 (talk) 22:04, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, see any article about proteins similar to Titin like Actinin and Gelsolin for example. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

There are approximately 10,000 Gene Wiki articles in Wikipedia (the subject of each article is a human gene and the protein encoded by that gene), and to the best of my knowledge, not a single one of them contains the IUPAC protein name. What is the point of including the IUPAC name? These names were designed to provide an unambiguous name for organic compounds. While it is possible to extend this nomenclature to proteins, the resulting IUPAC protein names are so cumbersome, that no one, scientists included, use them for serious work. They are incredibly long and difficult for humans to parse. If one is interested in the protein sequence, using one letter amino acid abbreviations is much more concise and far easier to read. IUPAC protein names are very long and including them in Wikipedia entries would overwhelm the rest of the article making it difficult for readers to find information that they are looking for. And as Mokele points out below, there are many variants of the same protein each with a different name. Including one IUPAC name is impractical, including several to designate different isoforms and species differences becomes absurd. Boghog (talk) 08:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

A further point worth considering - any IUPAC name will only apply to *one* isoform of titin, in one organism. Every single isoform will have a different IUPAC name, and these may also vary between species. Mokele (talk) 00:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Molecular weight of Titin

Hello, I couldn't help but notice that either the molecular formula is wrong or the mass of the molecule is. with 169723 carbon atoms it should weigh around 3'816'141.56406 Da, and with a total mass of 3'816'188.13 Da it should have 169726,88~169727 carbon atoms.

Most likely it's just the total mass that needs to be updated. (Although ExPASy shows that it should weigh about 3816188.1 Da)

This calculating was done with these values for C,H,N,O,S respectively: 12.0107, 1.00794, 14.0067, 15.9994 and 32.065 Da, and the help from ExPASy.

Yfé 22:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Facts and statements on Wikpedia all need to be supported by reliable sources, and preferably not original research. It's great to see you are doing the calculations, but the official link says 3,816,188.13 Da, so that's what the articles says. If you have any further comments just add it here or message me. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 22:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, and it was most likely wrong to open an edit request, I just wanted to highlight the subject. And perhaps one should talk with the source about where they get their numbers from, than talk about it here. (And the atomic masses were collected from Wikipedia's sites about those elements). I also changed the title of the subject, and removed the request "banner", hope it's ok. Yfé 18:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The issue of what the "correct" molecular formula and weight for a protein as large as titin cannot be answered precisely. First of all, the amino acid sequence of titin between species differs significantly. Even restricting the discussion to humans, there may be between individual variations. Furthermore in humans, according to Q8WZ42 there are at least eight different splice variants each differing somewhat in sequence composition and/or length. Finally in the body, identical titin amino acid sequences may be differentially amidated, glycosylated, and/or phosphorylated. Hence even within the same individual, there is not one titin, but a whole family of titin molecules (see proteomics), each with a different molecular weight. Hence discussions about what the "right" molecular weight of titin is rather meaningless. Boghog (talk) 19:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

This is just a short question, but don't you think this should be highlighted in the article?Yfé 16:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yfé (talk • contribs)

The article had briefly mentioned that "variations in the sequence of titin between different types of muscle" and "variability in the I-band region contributes to the differences in elasticity of different titin isoforms". Per your suggestion, I have now added a isoforms section which includes a table of the major isoforms titin and the length of each. Boghog (talk) 20:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Dimensions, please

I was just wondering how big (as in length or volume) this protein is. Is there an answer in nm or nm³? I'm trying to get a handle on the physical dimension so proteins. Thank you. JKeck (talk) 19:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

An extremely rough estimate based on the length between the N- and C-terminus of the subunits: PDB 2J8O (immunoglobulin domain) 85 Å X 122 copies + PDB 3LPW (fibronectin domain) 48 Å X 132 = ~ 17,000 Å. This estimate ignores the loops between modules and also ignores that the subunits may not be laid out in a completely linear array (i.e., adjacent domains may form a zig-zag pattern instead of a straight line). Boghog (talk) 21:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

full word

I thought it would be to long to put in the artical but i thought it would be ok to let it lie here for the people who want to know, please "(removed)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.18.128.183 (talk) 21:02, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a link to the full name of the word in the external links section. Also see previous discussions about the name on this talk page as to why we don't include it on the main page. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)