Group 81D

This is the Wikipedia page for 410.602 Molecular Biology, 2012, group 81D. This group will be editing the Nucleic acid structure article.

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 (optional, see Unit 5); rationale for selecting an article (Unit 6); progress reports (Units 9 and 12); and the final report (Unit 14). Please create a new section here for each of those assignments.

Unit 5: Article Assessments

After reviewing the long list of articles that could use some improvement I thought the following were both interesting and could use some additional information.

Dicer

Bacteriophage T12

Leaky scanning

Small interfering RNA

So Dicer is of stub-class and of mid importance. It just has a history and brief summary right now and could use some more images of structures and mechanisms I think. Also, an expansion on information would be helpful also

Bacteriophage T12 is registeread at a low importance so it only has a very short explanation and no pictures. However, I did a quick search in the JHU library and didn't really find much online. There were some article in PubMed though.

Leaky scanning has absolutely no talk page and is in serious need of help. It has no references and no images and just contains a brief summary.

Small interfering RNA is of B class quality and mid importance. The article itself is very informative and has several images but is missing some information and specifics. It would be a good article to work with since it already has a significant base article already and we would be helping form a better quality.

Here are some other Article 5 Assessments:

I agree that they all need a lot of work except Small interfering RNA seems to be better off than the rest of them. I also think that Endonucleases would be a good choice as well as [[Nucleic acid structure}}. Endonucleases obviously could use more information as well as figures. I think that we could really expand on the Nucleic acid structure since there are already 4 levels of structure listed so we could elaborate on that, add some figures, etc. That being said, I am leaning towards Nucleic acid structure as my first choice. Although I am surprised that more information has not already been included on the Nucleic acid structure article. For my second choice, I think Dicer would also be a good choice. I don’t think that we should do any article that will be difficult to obtain information on so I think Bacteriophage T12 would not be a good choice.

Unit 6 article selection rationale

After discussion and brief analysis of the recommended Wikipedia Articles that need improvement associated with Molecular Biology, Group 81D has decided to claim Nucleic acid structure. We have decided to work on this article for several reasons. For starters, the amount of information present on the articles site is very limited and needs some additions. However, there is already some structure to the article that can be expanded, such as the levels of the structure. Along with expansion of these levels of structure we will be able to add images with explanations in order for people who learn better with visualizations. It is important for this article to be expanded upon because it will help others get an understanding of the structure and interactions of DNA and/or RNA at a molecular level. Moreover, this article is considered to be a stub and by expansion of it we would be helping expand the information on Wikipedia. Although it is a stub, it will be just as challenging to improve as an article with a higher quality rating for a couple of reasons. For one, there is very little information so any expansion will be scrutinized in order to assess that accurate and quality information is being provided. In addition, it will be more useful if Nucleic acid structure information is provided on the main page and not merely as a link to another article as it currently is. This may entail editing the information provided on those pages as well. Finally, Nucleic acid structure is an important concept one wonders why the article is merely a stub and not a high quality article. Perhaps during the course of improving the article, the reason for that will be discovered.

Unit 9 Progress Report

Several modifications have been made to the Nucleic acid structure article. The introduction has been expanded but could be expanded even further. Further expansion of the introduction will continue as the article progresses. More information has been added to the primary, secondary and tertiary sections.In the primary section, there have been additions about the nucleotides, what they are and how they are bound together. In the secondary structure section there was an addition of how the bases pair and interact. However, there will be expansion on the A,B and Z forms of DNA and the importance of the minor and major grooves. In addition, the tertiary structure section will be added upon with discussion of the how the double strands interact in a 3D sense. The quaternary structure will also be expanded with discussion of formation into chromatin with the histone interaction. Also, discussion of how the different levels of the structure interact in DNA/RNA functions have also been included. Furthermore, images have been added in order to make it easier to see bonds and the different levels of the structure. We have also reformatted the way the page looks to make it easier to follow.

Unit 12 Progress Report

Quite a bit of progress has been made and most of the proposed future expansion from Unit 9s progress report has been expanded in Unit 12. Several of the sections have been greatly expanded, most notably, the A, B and Z forms of DNA. The major and minor grooves of the A, B and Z forms were described but perhaps more could still be added in terms of their importance. Also in the tertiary structure, importance of linking number, twist and writhe have been added based on the role that they play in arrangement of the double helix. Moreover, the quaternary structure has been added to and expanded slightly in order to give an idea of how other molecule subunits work with the nucleic acids. Also, we have added many images for reference such as the forms of DNA and also the process of DNA being formed into chromatin. Our group reviewed and made some suggestions to the 81B group article. Overall very well written article but here are some suggestions made by our group.

Further expansion of the introduction.
Some changes on how the article can be formatted to make the flow of information better.
Addition of some more images to the superfamilies.
Expanding on proteins of the Swi/Snf family in the helicase section.
Some information on the RNA database can be added.
Addition of various models of helicase translocation was suggested.

Final Progress Report

Significant Contributions to Nucleic Acid Structure Article by Group D were:

Reformat of the article
Expansion of all levels of nucleic acid structure terms (primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary)
Explanation of nucleotides and nucleic acid sequence as a primary structure
Description of purines and pyrimidines and interactions with one another
Addition of RNA as a secondary structure
Addition of A, B, and Z forms of DNA as tertiary structures of nucleic acids
Inclusion of LK, Twist and Writhe and how they are part of tertiary structure
Expansion of quaternary structure and the ability of nucleic acids to act with other molecules
Addition of all images

As a group we have expanded this article way beyond what its initially presented to us. We have pulled information together and really improved the presentation of the article. Also, on our talk page we had some assistance from another user on Wikipedia, a Wikipedia Campus Ambassador, who helped us determine the appropriate place for the forms of DNA among the different levels of nucleic acid structures. His input was helpful as well as his help with references.