Talk:Morpholino

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Contents 1 Jon 2 30 Aug 05 3 23 Jan 06 4 20 July 06 5 19 Sept 06 6 19 Oct 06

[edit] Jon

Good day, Wikipedians and Morpholino users;

This is a stub to invite discussion of the Morpholino article.

The Morpholino-RNA heteroduplex image was generated by me at Gene Tools LLC, may be freely copied, and is licensed by the owner under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright.

Regards,

 - Jon
     Jon D. Moulton, Ph.D.
     GENE TOOLS, LLC
     jmoulton (at) gene-tools.com
     www.gene-tools.com

[edit] 30 Aug 05

Nice editing, Daycd, the flow of the article has improved. However, I removed your assertion that Morpholinos are in Phase III clinical trials. While the AVI website may give that impression, there are currently no ongoing phase III trials. Jon

Hi Jon, I'm glad you approve. I got the phase three from the web site but obviously you should know better. David D. (Talk) 22:00, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 23 Jan 06

I removed a long parenthetical description defining "oligo" from the first sentence of the article. As the work "oligo" is already linked, the definition within this page was not needed. Jon

[edit] 20 July 06

I removed the {{ChemicalSources}} tag from external links since all of the promises made in the text associated with that link are false: Morpholinos are not available from the listed suppliers, the MSDSs are not available from that page, there is no spectroscopic data available there, etc. As Morpholinos are custom-synthesized compounds the spectroscopic data are only available from the manufacturer (Gene Tools or AVI Biopharma) and vary with the sequence of the oligo. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JonMoulton (talk • contribs). (and added nowiki by Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC))

I saw the edit, I think it is right to delete the ChemicalSources template here, though now the only link there is one to a company that you are working for. I would call that a commercial link. Could you please think that over? Maybe the complete external links section should go, or you should put your link into the Wikipedia:Chemical sources page (and reinstate the chemicalsources template) to avoid any commercial bias on the page. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll remove the external links section. As Gene Tools is the only commercial source of Morpholinos it seemed convenient to provide the link, but a search engine can find the company quickly enough. JonMoulton 19:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 19 Sept 06

A lead sentance had been added saying "In biochemistry, a morpholino is a kind of molecule used for genetic engineering. " Because Morpholinos do not modify DNA, I do not think it is appropriate to say they are used for genetic engineering, which is a field generally involving artificial genetic recombination. Further, as Morpholinos have their direct effect at the gene expression level instead of the metabolic level, they are more closely related to molecular biology than to biochemistry. I have changed the first sentance to: "In molecular biology, a Morpholino is a kind of molecule used to modify gene expression. " Overall, I think that the addition of an introductory sentance is an improvement in the article and that the general form of the sentance was very good. These changes fine-tune the focus to the actual uses of Morpholino oligos. JonMoulton 15:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 19 Oct 06

A statement that "Claim for absence of non-specific effects has been contested" has been added to the top of the Morpholino page. As far as I can tell the page does not claim that Morpholinos have no non-specific effects. Certainly the sequence-specificity of Morpholinos is not perfect, and targets with several mismatched bases can be knocked down. However, the sequence specificity is better than available from other antisense types, such as phosphorothioate oligo or siRNA, due to the longer complementarity required for Morpholino activity. I would be happy to discuss this further. NPOV has also been challenged; I would welcome the input of experienced Morpholino users in editing this page. I have tried to maintain NPOV but I think it would be better to have strong editorial input from independent Morpholino users. JonMoulton 16:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The user who attached the NPOV tag is not registered, but I have requested clarification on the IP address' talk page. Shultzc 09:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I noticed one phrase which could be interpreted as a strong claim of perfect specificity. This is the claim that Morpholinos do not have "off target effects". A narrower claim is that they do not have non-antisense effects (such as the physiological effects caused by interaction of the phosphorothioate backbone with proteins). I think it is reasonable to narrow that claim; as I point out above, Morpholiinos can interact with targets bearing a few mismatches, which would fall under "off-target effects". Therefore, I am changing that phrase to "non-antisense effects".JonMoulton 16:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As the original user who flagged this as biased, I have now included a referenced paragraph outlining these issues so that concerned readers can access primary research papers backing the basis for the original claim. As a member of the morpholino-user community, I hope that this will encourage discussion about these very important issues that effect the research life of many scientists around the world.