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edit · history · watch · refresh  To-do list for Cell (biology):
restructure according to the structure recommended in Wikipedia:WikiProject Science. Merge with text from NCBI Science Primer User:Lexor/Temp/Cell (NCBI) is complete. Text that was not used in the article is at Talk:Cell (biology)/NCBI leftover. It is still very useful and should be merged into more specialized articles. --Lexor|Talk Major problem: discussion of organelles does not point out anywhere that prokaryotes lack them Fact check these points: multicellular organisms have cells that "do not generally survive" when separated. Can't most plants do that? Or sponges? plants: as a rule, no. certain multicellular organisms are better characterized as a collection of unicellular organisms given their lesser degree of specialization. in general, multicellular organisms have specialized cells for a reason and cannot reproduce via budding. in the "cytoplasm" section, it says that all eukaryotes have cytoskeletons and implies that no prokaryotes do. Can someone confirm this? prokaryotes have a cell wall to lend structural support, so their version of the cytoskeleton is not the same. is the description of processes like transcription and translation general enough to include all organisms, including prokaryotes? principle difference is the location: prokaryotes lack membrane-bound organelles and do everything in a nuclear region, including transcription, translation, and protein folding. Are the distinctions between prokaryotes and eukaryotes as clear as they should be? Is everything about the prokaryotes right? short answer: no. can the line about "prokaryotic cells have three architectural regions..." be improved? Is the prokaryotic cytoplasm more "granular" than in eukaryotes? Both kinds have ribosomes floating around... Is the typical cell size 10 micrometers diameter, or is it the radius? number given is an order of magnitude observation estimation The largest observed single undivided cell is NOT the ostrich egg, but a slime mold at approximately 30 square metres. Theres a broken code of some sort above the cytoplasm bold heading that should be fixed. (10/09/07) They are called "blocks of life" not bricks! Check your own reference (the 1st one)
Priority 1 (top)

Contents 1 Old discussion 2 Billion 3 cell formation 4 Fact Check 5 Cells evolved from bubbles on the shores of the primordial seas 6 Energy storing 7 what is the meaning of the word cell 8 Prokaryotes lack cytoskeleton 9 Table 2 10 Image 10.1 The extracellular matrix 11 Diseases of the cell? 12 References!!! 13 Peer review 14 Cells in the human body section 15 Microbodies -> Vacuole 16 Printable Version 17 GA Re-Review and In-line citations 18 some people 19 Genetic Code 20 The protein synthesis section is unclear 21 "Typical" procaryotic cell with mesosome 22 Correction 23 Kelseyking's edit to lead 24 Which organelle does the nutrient go to first? Second? Third? So on? 25 catalan featured article 26 What is a Nuclear Pore 27 Origin section 28 Called a what? 29 Typo to be corrected 30 Largest Cell 31 GA Reassessment 31.1 GA Sweeps: Delisted 32 Hereditary information

[edit] Old discussion

Archaea are the oldest organisms existing.

Err - can we just get a reference for Archaea being progenitors of eukaryotes?

Some interesting references

Patrick Forterre, among which pour la science,22, 1998

CR Woese, Scientific American, 244, 94, 1981

J. Wiegel and M. Adams, Thermophiles and the Origin of Life, Taylor & Publisher, London, 1998

G.R. Block and J.A. Goode, Evolution of Hydrothermal Ecosystems on Earth. Ciba foundation, John Wiley and sons, 1996

look at table 1

The archeas are proposed not to be ancestors of euca, but on the same lign, and appearing sooner on this line

check out C.R. Woese and G.H. Olsen System Appl. Microbiology for the first proposition of the tree.

and N. Iwabe et al, Prob Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 86, 9355, 1989 and P. Gogarten et al, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 86, 6661, 1989 for later improvment of it

For the proposition of euca resulting from the fusion of archea and bacteria, check out W.F. Dolittle.

might look also for a symposium on Thermophiles in 96. University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, UK, with a lot of interesting things on thermophila and origin of life

user:anthere

What does it mean ? What evidence is available than they are older than bacteria ? (not to mention that this word has much meaning in evolutionary biology than people use to assume based on their false vision of evolution) --Taw

According to common theory, they are the ancestors of eukaryotes. By absorbing certain prokaryotes, they added new functions to themselves, becoming more complex in the process (endosymbiotic theory). Mitochondria and chloroplasts in eukaryotes, for example, are basically adapted bacteria.

They aren't any adapted bacteria. They were initially. Nowadays 95% of their structure is coded by cell nucleus, and they lost many other functions. --Taw

Today, several Archaea can only survive by adopting to extreme environments, e.g. geysers or black smokers. They can survive extreme pressure and heat, and can feed on methane or sulfur.

That's not that way. Some of them live in such environments, but many others don't.

And this sentence is sugesting that such an environment is in some way inferior to Eucaryotic environment. It would be as silly to say that fish can only survive by adopting to extreme (underwater) environment. --Taw

And it's also misleading in that some researchers theorize that those particular "extreme conditions" (hydrothermal vents) may be where life arose in the first place. In which case, non-Archaea life could only survive by adopting to extreme environments, eg. dry land and open ocean.

---

If i recall correctly the current picture of the tree of life (which is wobbly) has prokaryotes as the progenitors, with archaea and eukaryotes branching off at some later point. Of course, there's so much horizontal gene transfer amongst archaea/prokaryotes that it's really damn hard to say anything definitively... at any rate, I've NEVER heard that archaea came first, or that eukaryotes descended from archaea. Graft 04:53 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

no. It is not the current tree as accepted by most imho. It doesnot really state euca are descending from the archea. They don't appear to descend from procaryotes either. Most believe two lines appear from a common ancestor LUCA (well, the last common at least). Two lines separated. One leading to the bacteria, the other line followed a common way first, then gave the archea, later the eucaryotes. However, there are some biological inconsistencies with that proposition.

another proposition based not only on RNAr study but also on GC analysis seems to suggest the LUCA is leading to two branches, one leading toward eucaryotes, and the other leading to archea, which later gave the procaryotes. But that's only an hypothesis.

another proposition is that euca emerged from fusion of a bacteria and an archea.

maybe we should draw pictures of all the propositions...Did anybody tried to do that ???

user:anthere

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I came here to complain about the article, and Taw wrote everything down already! Somebody needs to fix this. AxelBoldt 04:45 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

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I came to check the original english article for somebody wanted to translate it in french, and I also came here to complain :-))

Anthere 00:06 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

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I suspect this article is infelicitously named just as "mathematical group" was an exceedingly bad name for an article on its topic. The latter is now fortunately redirected to "group (mathematics)". No mathematician calls a group a "mathematical group", but it is within mathematics that the word "group" is used in the sense that that article contemplates. Would the same reasoning lead to the conclusion that this article should be redirected in the same way? (If so, the number of links to fix would be fairly large.) Michael Hardy 21:39 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

---

I agree that "Biological cell" is not what a biologist would name the page, but I think it makes very clear what is on the page, particularly for anyone who first goes to the "Cell" page. Why not put a brief statement near the top of the "Biological cell" page similar to what Michael Hardy wrote above? JWSchmidt 01:36 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

My vote would be for cell (biology). It's a little less natural to use in a sentence, but at the same time, I would expect people to use it more often regardless. Accidental links are important. There would indeed be a lot of pages to change - but surely by now someone capable has written a script for that? --Josh Grosse

Biological cell is more awkward to link to than cell (biology). You can just type cell (biology)|, but for biological cell, you have to do the full-blown alt text thing.

There are hundreds of links to this page under its current name, but if we don't want to change them, we really don't have to. People will find their way to the right page all the same. -Smack 02:14 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I fixed the cut and paste move. If there is no consensus about the new name it can be moved back, but I didn't want the history to split. Dori | Talk 16:06, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)

---

Why the thumbnail near the top of the page? It's the same as the diagram lower down, but without the context that gives sense to its labels and explains what it's an example of. If we wanted to have pictures of various types of cells, I'm all for it, but I don't get this. -- Josh

I was looking for an image of another cell to use here. I think it's a good idea to have a thumbnail of the subject under discussion somewhere near the top, it helps orient (especially non-technical) readers to have an image in mind of the subject early in the article, and the way it is now, the image of the cell appears more than 50% of the way into the article. If we had another image of a cell, preferably an actual photograph or microscopy image, that would be even better. --Lexor|Talk 05:53, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Billion

Article says: humans have an estimated 100,000 billion cells? What does that mean? Billion have two meanings and I am not sure which is it. Could someone, please, correct it to the format specified in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)? Or perhaps explain if 100,000 billion = 10¹⁷ or 10¹⁴? Przepla 18:28, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Done: it should be 10¹⁴ (i.e. US billion). Lexor|Talk 12:15, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] cell formation

I just moved the article back to its original. Discuss before making a move of a large page with all those re-directs to fix. No, leave it here. Cell formation is not a good name anyway. Cell biology w/out the parens would be better, but if it is moved there is a lot of link changes to make. I vote to leave as is unless someone gives some very good reasons. Vsmith 21:36, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fact Check

While I was reading through the article, I fixed things that I knew were wrong, but I also found a few things that don't seem to fit with what I know about cells, where I was too unsure to change them. I thought maybe you'd know:

• all cells have "traffic of vesicles." Is that true for prokaryotes?
• multicellular organisms have cells that "do not generally survive" when separated. Can't most plants do that? Or sponges?
• in the "cytoplasm" section, it says that all eukaryotes have cytoskeletons and implies that no prokaryotes do. Can someone confirm this?
• is the description of processes like transcription and translation general enough to include all organisms, including prokaryotes?
• Are the distinctions between prokaryotes and eukaryotes as clear as they should be? Is everything about the prokaryotes right?
• can the line about "prokaryotic cells have three architectural regions..." be improved?
• Is the prokaryotic cytoplasm more "granular" than in eukaryotes? Both kinds have ribosomes floating around...

I'll put up more questions when I finish the article. Thanks in advance for your help. Dave (talk) 12:01, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

To anwser the questions so far:

• All organisms use vesicles to transport proteins etc from the ER to the membrane and other compartments
• The single cells from MC organisms do not generally survive statement is right and wrong, no cells from a MC organism will survive if you take them out and stick them in a dish, most (all?) MC cells will proliferate from single cells if you give them the right cues but they won't make a new organism, plants (and mabye fungi, I need to do more reading on fungi) are the only organism that can regenerate a new multicellular organism from a single cell.
• All cells have a cytoskeleton, its integral for cell division.
• They key difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic transcription and translation is that in eukaryotic systems transcription and translation occur sequentially whereas in prokaryotes transcription and translation occur simultaneously within the cell. This is probably the only distinction that needs to be made in a summary article like this.
• this could be clearer:

Most of the functions of organelles, such as mitochondria, chloroplasts, and the Golgi apparatus, are taken over by the prokaryotic plasma membrane. Mabye could be: many of the fuctions performed by the oraganelles of eukaryotic cells occur on (across?) the plasma membrane of the prokaryote, for example, ATP regeneration and photosynthesis.

Not all bacteria have cell walls

• The phrase architectural regions isn't helping with clarity, get rid of it and describe the parts of the prokaryotic cell simply.
• I think that the granularity of the cytoplasm depends on the type of cell and the metablolic state of the cell, and isn't really correlated with prokaryotes vs. eukaryotes.

--nixie 05:51, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Note to self: I still need to deal with the transcription one, the "this could be clearer" one, aand the "architectural regions" one. Dave (talk) 12:27, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

All organisms use vesicles to transport proteins etc from the ER to the membrane and other compartments. Prokaryotes don't have an ER. Josh Cherry 12:46, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Should have been more careful there, but they do have vesicles to store lipds, usually called membrane vesicles; aquatic bacteria also have structures called gas vesicles (but they're more like a vacuole)--nixie 13:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cells evolved from bubbles on the shores of the primordial seas

I read recently a theory suggesting that the first cells evolved from the bubbles of crashing waves on the shores of the ancient ocean. If I can provide the source, and perhaps a more detailed account of the theory, would it be worth mentioning in the 'cell origins' section? - R Lee E (talk, contribs) 21:15, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I referred to my source to gather further details, and have put together a rough summary in my own words. The book is called "The Cell: Evolution of the First Organism" by Joseph Panno, Ph.D. Here's what I've got so far:

....proteinoids are observed by heating amino acids with phosphoric acid as a catalyst. They bear much of the basic features provided by cell membranes. Proteinoid-based protocells enclosing RNA molecules could (but not necessarily should) have been the first cellular life forms on Earth.

Your contributions are welcome ofcourse. - R Lee E (talk, contribs) 07:36, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

It sounds quite speculative, but I'll let the other editors decide whether it merits inclusion. I've made some general language edits to improve NPOV, though.

--causa sui ^talk 18:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

While we are talking about theories, I have one for everybody: Cells were created by God only about 6,000 years ago when the first multicellular organism (plants) were created. I can see people already criticizing me for bringing this up, but what better explanation can there be? How do you get inorganic chemicals to turn into a form of life? Not even organic chemicals help out since most are actually lethal to life! How would a bubble help create a cell? Even if this bubble has all of the necessary requirements to create a cell, how would you be able to have all of the parts (including the nucleus) put into a working order without a single mistake? I do not think chance is going to help at all with that. Another thing, how does DNA fit into a cell's nucleus if chance took place? A single strand of DNA from one cell inside a human's body is said to be about 6 feet long while the cell itself cannot even be seen as a microscope. I know I am not yet a scientist and I still need to do more research, but seriouly, the ideas that were given in your origin sections have many complicated issues. Why can you not also add the theory of God creating cells as another theory (yes, some scientists do hold this as not only a theory but a fact)? You should not just hold an evolutionist's theory and hide a creationist's theory. That is being biased against a certain group. I do not want you to reply back that creationists are not scientists because there are actually a lot of scientists who are actually abandoning the evolution theory and going with creation (and I am talking about professional scientists). If you need sources on those scientists, I am willing to link them. Please do not just show one side of the argument, but show both. Thank you.

LOAP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.58.82 (talk) 21:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"It [linked video] is not intended as a sacrilege of the poetic beauty of Genesis:rather it is a mere extension of what the creationists have already done to Genesis in their insistence that it be read not as mythic saga but as scientific prose". David D. (Talk) 05:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to let you know, that guy has no real basic reason to interpret Genesis like that. First thing you have to realize about that guy is that he is an athiest and will of course try to downplay the reliabilty of Genesis. Second, to do any translation of the Bible, you must start with the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramic language (which can be found in concordences). Third, Genesis is not a myth; it is written history of God about the creation, man's fall, the first promise of the redeemer, the catastrophic flood, the confusion of languages at the tower of Babel, the choosing of the Jewish nation to preserve the promised seed, etc. Genesis is more important than that guy makes it, and it sickens me to see some so called "expert" or "scientist" try to attack it. But to be honest, I am not surprised, because if you look at certain texts of the Bible, God tells us there will be people who scoff at the beginnings and claim that everything we see now always took place (look in 2 Peter 3). It is no surprise that that guy is trying to refute Scripture and is no surprise if you criticize me even in the future because God prophecied that would happened at least over 1,500 years ago when 2 Peter was written.

Please, if you want to against Genesis, I suggest you take your time READING it using a concordence to find the meaning of certian Hebrew words (like day which is always a word that gets hit hard by progressive creationists and evolutionists). Do not rely on some athiest who has all intention to turn everybody away from the Bible. Study it yourself! I pray that God's Spirit will help you understand the meaning of the text. The text itself is writeen so that anyone can understand it and to be taken literally. I really do not see how hard it is to understand Scripture when it says God created the earth in 6 literal days.

As for the cells, if you believe that God created everything in 6 days, than it is no problem to consider when cells came about. The earliest record of any living organism recorded in Genesis is on day three when land was made and plants were created. Now I understand that Genesis does not record when microbes and single celled organisms were made, but you must realize that when Genesis was first written to the Jews, they did not have microscopes to see single celled organisms nor did it really matter since humanity spent most of its time not knowing of bacteria. I myself believe single celled organisms were made on day three with plants (and these organisms were not harmful, but beneficail), but that is my own opinion and not actual fact in Scripture. If you have more questions on these topics, please try looking at www.icr.org or www.answersingenesis.org or www.godandscience.org

These websites were created by people who are both scientists and born again Christians who dedicate their time to answer questions such as cells. Please look them up before asking any other questions. Now let us see if I get any nasty comments this time. LOAP

[edit] Energy storing

what stores the energy in cells. If the mitochondria creats the energy where does it go to awate use. is it used otomaticaly or is it stored somewhere. This was unclear to me. If you can answer my question thak you. Oh and people stop conplaining.(69.154.246.64 04:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)) Benerally, it is stored in the form of glicoe. When the energy is needed, glicose is used to produce ATP, and the ATP is used "power-up" some quemical reactions. while that, I think that ATP os free on the citoplasm, like the NaCl in a solution. I THINK that's how it work's, but I'm not shure. algumacoisaqq 13:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

This --> ATP is a link to the specific ATP article you want. There are some other "energy rich" chemicals that also act to store the chemical energy from mitochondria. Wikipedia needs a better article on bioenergetics. text book --JWSchmidt 13:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] what is the meaning of the word cell

Dictionary. 142.59.172.187 20:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prokaryotes lack cytoskeleton

This was todo question. Can be confirmed from various sources, e.g. [3] [4] [5] [6] Lejean2000 13:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at [7],[8]--JWSchmidt 13:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I missed this. I didn't even suspect such findings. Here are more (downloadable) articles describing the functions of actin and tubulin homologues in bacteria. [9] [10] Lejean2000 15:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

We should make an effort to provide up-to-date references at Cytoskeleton#The prokaryotic cytoskeleton and related pages. --JWSchmidt 16:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Most articles I found today are way too technical to be useful, at least for me. Anyway, I am very far outside my field of knowledge, so I'll keep any contributions I can offer in the discussion pages. I think we should keep links for specific proteins at their respective pages (FtsZ, MreB, etc...). Here is what I found interesting: [11], [12],[13], [14],[15], and a bit earlier article - [16] and Margolin, W. Themes and variations in prokaryotic cell division. Fems Microbiology Reviews, 2000 Oct, 24(4):531-48. There are actually more of those, as I got hooked on the subject. I hope someone is interested. Lejean2000 16:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table 2

Would somone who knows more biology than please check this table for accuracy. It has vacuoles in the animal cell section. I'm pretty sure they should be in the plant cell section. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 16:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

• Maybe usefull image: http://www.genome.gov/Pages/Hyperion/DIR/VIP/Glossary/Illustration/cell.cfm?key=cell

--Snek01 21:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The extracellular matrix

I think some description of how the cell works in the ECM should be added here, or at least a link to ECM. 128.139.226.37 15:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diseases of the cell?

I don't like this section. It only covers cancer, while arguably, most diseases are diseases of the cell... Extracellular parasites are the only exception that comes to mind at the moment. For example, any virus-mediated disease is a disease of the cell, as viruses replicate inside cells. Would anyone mourn this section's passing? Peter Z.^Talk 21:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but only because I've added a bit to it. :P Nah, I think that bacteriophages are the only disease category I can think of. Perhaps reinsert something about viruses generally in the section on reproduction?GiollaUidir 23:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References!!!

For an article of this length and about a scientific subject there should be a mass of references; instead there's only one. Some work needed! Would it be useful to go through the article indicating useful points to insert them??GiollaUidir 23:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Since its a very general article, I think it would be most appropriate to add a couple of textbooks and online resources as references. I don't think inline references are critical for most of the article. Peter Z.^Talk 23:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

PS I see there are a couple of links to text books already. This is sufficient in my personal opinion. 23:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, just that there seem to be some debatable points in the article which a reference or two would clear up. (Maybe!)GiollaUidir 23:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a good look... In my opinion this article should have no such points, unless they are really important. As a very general audience article it should contain only well established facts and views. Peter Z.^Talk 23:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

The peer review of this article is a little old and stale, so I'll post here that I posted there in case nobody's reading the peer review subpage anymore. Opabinia regalis 08:35, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am actually stll trying to follow it :) The reason it's gone stale is that noone has replied apart from Andy and his bot. Thank you for your comments, I'll get to work on them. Peter Z.^Talk 08:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cells in the human body section

I have removed this section, as havng a whole section for one statistic that was already in the intro was pointless Jnb 11:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Microbodies -> Vacuole

Somehow the German version of the picture below has no vacuole but calls it Microbody and 10 an 12 are mixed.

. I am no cell biologist, so what is correct now, or are both correct and have one missing?

your welcome to use this diagram instead. I can label it if you want. It has a vacuole over in the left hand side of the picture. Its a non-specific cell, e.g. it has visible centrioles and a chloroplast. It was drawn to replace that diagram above.

[edit] Printable Version

dont know if tis is the right place to complain, but something is wrong with the printable version. the first part of the text in the printable version only fills the left half of the pages (or the bottom parts are to wide dont know). anyways it looks really weird when printed... thanks for help - 85.220.132.38 12:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. LuciferMorgan 20:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] some people

this person called Danimsturr is screwing up this website. i hate it when people do that. how about you? i do. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Smouli (talk • contribs) 00:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC). you know your spamming right?

[edit] Genetic Code

Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I don't see the answer I was looking for: does each cell contain the entire genetic code, or only part of it? E.g. would a single hair or skin flake contain all the information required to make a clone as seen in the movies? 142.59.172.187 20:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The DNA in a cell is generally the whole genome for that organism. That's why almost any biological sample can be used (in principle, except for red blood cells) to match evidence to suspect or to identify victim body-parts. Note that for cloning purposes for most multicellular species, you'd need an undifferentiated cell line, such as stem cells, likely from the same species, and transfer the genetic material into it. DMacks 20:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The protein synthesis section is unclear

There are a couple things that are unclear to a non-expet like me in the protein synthesis section:

• Amino acids are mentioned as building blocks, which seems rather important, but they are never mentioned by name again. The way it is now, it seems as if the polypeptide sequence is built out of tRNA, or something: "The mRNA sequence directly relates to the polypeptide sequence by binding to transfer RNA (tRNA) adapter molecules . . .". There should be something about how tRNA delivers the proper amino acid to be added to the chain.

• The sequential nature of protein synthesis isn't apparent from the transcription. It seems to happen all at once, rather than codon-by-codon.

It would be great if someone could clarify this. I'm not a protein synthesis expert. Atomota 08:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Typical" procaryotic cell with mesosome

What is a mesosome? This picture of the "typical" procaryotic cell with a mesosome is in this and other articles, none of which mention a mesosome. Let's get mesosome going in this article, since we're showing that it is part of the "typical" procaryotic cell! --69.226.108.255 (talk) 05:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Mesosomes don't exist, I'm working with the artist who produced the picture to get it removed ASAP. Tim Vickers (talk) 14:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've made a temporary low-resolution PNG version, that can do until we get the original altered. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

They exist, they're artifacts of fixation (OsO4, I think). It should have been checked by a biologist before it was put on the main page. --207.62.177.231 (talk) 00:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but they don't usually exist in nature. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

They appear typical of prokaryotes on Wikipedia in multiple languages. Is this being fixed, all of the images which show mesosomes in other languages? Are images reviewed first by a biologist?

The artist's work is superb, but when an illustrator is not also a scientist they should be assisted by one, particularly if they are creating copyright-free graphics. There are other technical problems with some of her illustrations (one of the Golgi, for example). Teaming her up with a scientist would give Wikipedia a great(er) asset. She appears willing and able to fix things with good input from others more technically knowing.

Scientific knowledge is not the only type of expertise. A great illustrator is worth their weight in gold in the sciences. One of the textbook companies will soon find her, offer her a fortune, and give her five experts to support her illustrations, though. In fact, I think I'll send some of her illustrations to my biology textbook publisher--she could clean up a lot of their illustrations. --69.226.108.255 (talk) 03:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

And how does one remove them from articles in other languages? Narayanese (talk) 20:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I dealt with the German Wikipedia, but my language skills are limited. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A note in English on the respective 'other language' discussion page should do, don't you think? There should be someone in the respective Wiki-project who will understand it. English is the current lingua franca, after all. We others ain't all that uneducated ;-). Using simple words might help though, in some cases. --Dietzel65 (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Correction

Change "Prokaryotes differ from eukaryotes since they lack of a nuclear membrane and a cell nucleus." to read "Prokaryotes differ from eukaryotes since they lack a nuclear membrane and a cell nucleus."(remove the word of)or to read "Prokaryotes differ from eukaryotes by the lack of a nuclear membrane and a cell nucleus." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.5.245.62 (talk) 05:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Done, thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kelseyking's edit to lead

It's a shame to have to revert good faith edits, but it looks like jotted down notes. And ribosomes don't pack proteins, chaperones do that, ribosomes just polymerise amino acids. And prokaryotes do have membranes. Narayanese (talk) 11:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which organelle does the nutrient go to first? Second? Third? So on?

I'm assuming it goes through the endoplasmic reticulum, then gets stored in the vacuole, where it is sent through the ribosomes and becomes protein, and then gets stored in the Golgi Apparatus, eventually being released in vesciles brought through the mitochondria and becomes energy, the energy is brought to all the organelles. Is this correct? If so, shouldn't it be easier to find in the article to the average glancer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikool (talk • contribs) 13:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Which nutrient are you talking about? Sugars and amino acids are broken down in the cytosol and mitochondrion, fatty acids only in the mitochondrion. Amino acids (the precursor for proteins) are transported in solution through the cytosol. However, I'm not sure if this answers what you were asking, since it all depends on which nutrient you're talking about. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] catalan featured article

It needs Link FA|ca --Ssola (talk) 15:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is a Nuclear Pore

please help help me find out what a nueclear pore. i need help for a project i am doing in class. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.118.226.38 (talk) 21:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

You will find what you need at nuclear pore. The problem might be that you were searching using "nueclear". Good luck! Medical geneticist (talk) 18:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Origin section

My edit summary wasn't that clear, but I gutted the section because I felt it only took a minority's view. The best article on the subject seems to be Evolutionary history of life#Origins of life on Earth.

Congratulations btw to the Catalan Wikipedia for getting Cèl·lula to featured article. Narayanese (talk) 09:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Here is a bit I removed from the section beacuse I can't see what it has to do with the origin of cells:

The unit of selection in modern organisms and populations of organisms is not clear, with natural selection being proposed to work at the level of genes, cells, individual organisms, groups of organisms and even species.^[1][2] None of these models are mutually-exclusive and selection may act on multiple levels simultaneously.^[3]

Narayanese (talk) 07:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Called a what?

In the "Cell Membrane" section there is a part that reads, "There is a wide range of compounds with different head and tail groups and usually the membrane is a mixture thereof. Hence, the layer is called a . It may also be called a fluid mosaic membrane." There's a word or words missing there, but I don't know what the layer is called. Smoggyrob 13:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Typo to be corrected

Under the heading : Origin of the first cell

"The eary cell membranes were probably more simple and permeable than modern ones"

It seems that "eary" should be replaced with "early"

Thank you.

Done - thanks, Vsmith (talk) 04:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Cell

The largest single undivided cell ever observed was a slime mold, at approximately 30 square metres.

Radiohead40540057 (talk) 22:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, I had a look, but couldn't find a source for this. Do you have a citation to hand? Tim Vickers (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't know about the mold, but the single-cell Caulerpa algae are definitely bigger than an ostrich egg.83.101.84.67 (talk) 00:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Cell (biology)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

[edit] GA Sweeps: Delisted

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I believe the article currently has several issues that need to be addressed, and as a result, I have delisted the article. Multiple sections in the article are lacking citations. Add additional citations from a variety of sources to provide a balanced representation of the information present. Perhaps sources can be pulled from the main articles linked to within the article. Look to books, magazines, newspaper articles, other websites, etc. It would be beneficial if the "History" section could be converted to prose as well (also aren't there other breakthroughs that can be mentioned past 1981?). Although the article has been delisted, the article can be returned to GA status by addressing the above points and giving the article a good copyedit. Once sources are added and cleanup is done, I recommend renominating the article at WP:GAN. If you disagree with this assessment, a community consensus can be reached at WP:GAR. If you need clarification or assistance with any of these issues, please contact me on my talk page and I'll do my best to help you out. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hereditary information

This statement is false:

"[A]ll cells contain the hereditary information necessary for regulating cell functions and for transmitting information to the next generation of cells." Unfree (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

yes anucleate cells and haploid cells are the exception to this rule. I've reworded this to make it clear that this is part of the original cell theory. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)