Talk:Signal transduction

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This article was the MCB Collaboration of the Month for the month of March 2007.
For more details, see the MCB Collaboration of the Month history.
To-do list for Signal transduction: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:


    • Add more References.
    • Add section on physical stimuli and signal transduction (e.g. photoreceptors in retina and plants).
    • Improve WP:MOS.

    I have added a new intro/overview section for the article, I drew on material from Cosma Shalizi's "Signal transduction" Notebook from 2003-01-20. It is used under the GFDL with permission, see Talk:Self-organization for GFDL-related correspondence with author. It probably need more work to be integrated better, some of the material might be relevant for the "Processing of environment signals" section. -- Lexor 11:15, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

    Contents

    [edit] Comments and suggestions for refactoring the introduction

    The former revision of this article had this introduction:

    In biology, signal transduction describes the uptake of environmental signals by cells, the intercellular communication between cells in a multicellular organism, and the signal recognition, transmission, and resulting action within a cell. A typical signal transduction pathway consists of the following steps:
    1. Biosynthesis of a hormone
    2. Storage and secretion of the hormone.
    3. Transport of the hormone to the target cell.
    4. Recognition of the hormone by the hormone receptor protein, leading to a conformational change.
    5. Relay and amplification of the signal that leads to defined biochemical reactions within the target cell. The reactions of the target cells can, in turn, cause a signal to the hormone-producing cell that leads to the down-regulation of hormone production.
    6. Removal of the hormone.
    The signal transduction can be altered at any of these steps. The single most important mechanism to do this is phosphorylation.

    An edit by User:Hideshi changed this to (after some copyedits for spelling and grammar by me) the current edit:

    In biology, signal transduction refers to the transformation of the extracellular physiochemical signals into intracellular signals. Extracellular signals are generally ligands of transmembrane receptors and are generally derived from either other cells or the environment (with the exception of autocrine factors), while an intracellular signal consists of a series of chemical interactions in either the cellular membrane or the intracellular space, or from the cellular membrane to the intracellular space. Generally autocrine factors are secreted from the cell and lose the distinction from those from the neighbouring cells.
    Some typical examples of extracellular signals to which unicellular organisms respond include nutrients and related chemicals, while signals to cells in vertebrates organisms include photons, hormones, growth factors, cytokines, interleukins, neurotransmitters and the various ligands of the olfactory and gustatory receptors. Most extracellular chemical signals are water-soluble and membrane impermeable. These molecules act as ligands for transmembrane receptors and cause a structural change in these receptor molecules, which then induces the intracellular signalling phase. Typical examples of membrane permeable and extracellular signals are steroid hormones. Steroids hormones first diffuse into the cell membrane and then bind to their receptors, which are usually located in the cell nucleus.
    Intercellular signalling molecules in eukaryotic cells include heterotrimeric G protein, small GTPases, cyclic nucleotides, such as cAMP and cGMP, calcium ion, phophoinositide derivatives, such as Phosphatidylinositol-triphosphate(PIP3), Diacylglycerol (DAG) and Inositol-triphosphate (IP3), and various protein kinases and phosphatases. Intracellular signalling usually leads to certain cellular responses, such as the regulation of gene expression, the modulation of signal transduction pathways, chemotaxis and morphological changes.

    While I appreciate the detailed nature of the description here, it seems to have lost some of the clarity and relatively non-technical nature of the earlier version of the introduction. I suggest that we merge some of the above edit by Hideshi into the original edit of the page, and where it is not possible to merge, we can relocate the rest to the next section. We might also want to consider the Overview and context section as well in this refactoring. --Lexor 10:19, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

    I see Lexor's points. My intension was to bring some generality to the discription. Please go ahead and be bold in editing. --Hideshi 8 Dec 2003

    This whole article could use a rewrite, clarifying the whole process, complete with references. I'd do it if I knew jack about cell biology. - Quirk 13:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Receptor page

    Receptor (proteomics) now contains a list of receptors. Please list any pages you know on that list, because it's presently a bit messy. JFW | T@lk 20:24, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

    [edit] Where to put signaling pathways?

    After transduction at the receptor, there's a lot of important stuff that goes on before the final effector molecules. There should be an article that covers the various pathways including phospatidyl inositol 3kinase/Akt, Ras/Raf-MEK/Erk, eNOS/NO, and inositol 3phosphate/Ca2+. (That list is from here [1].) It probably deserves its own article, and maybe it has one that I'm not finding. Or should it be put in here?

    [edit] The merging issue

    Nah. Signal transduction is part of the Cell signaling. -- Boris 04:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

    I expanded Cell signaling to provide a general outline of the production of signals, types of receptors and to introduce signal transduction pathways. --JWSchmidt 19:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC

    Cell Communication is a larger classification than Cell Signaling. Cell signaling belongs inside Cell Communication. This leaves enough room for additional cell communication modalities to emerge. 4.131.140.37 (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Definition please

    What does genesturn mean? - D.White

    [edit] Reference

    Unless someone other than the author can assert that the following reference is noteworthy and useful within the scope of the article within three days, I suggest the next person to see this message after that time removes the reference from the article - it was inserted by the author.

    Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


    [edit] Overview section and other comments

    Here are a couple of my suggestions on how to improve the article. I think the overview section may be a little unnecessary since it repeats information in the main chunk of the article and there is already a lead paragragh that is supposed to summarise the page. Perhaps its removal, or incorporation into the main text would improve this page. Also, it seems there is a bias towards hormones in the article at the moment (clearly someone with knowledge has added their info without as much input from others) that makes the article, at times, appear as if it about hormone related signal transduction. e.g. see the sections on stimulatory molecules and nuclear receptors. Hope this is helpful, Ciar 19:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Photoreceptors

    I was looking at photoreceptors and which ones already have Wikipedia pages. I found a couple of the main plant receptors, such as phytochrome, cryptochrome, and phototropin. I also found that they link to photoreceptor, which currently is an article exclusively about the photoreceptor neurons of mammalian retina, resulting in those plant links not making any sense. While we're at it, it might be a good idea to collect some info on molecular photoreceptors to disambiguate the photoreceptor page? - tameeria 16:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Move steroid hormone information and referencing idea

    I'm thinking of moving all the information on steroid hormones/receptors and DNA interactions into the article steroid hormones. The steroid hormones article lacks this information and I think this might be a better place for it. Steroid hormones don't really activate a secondary messenger pathway and the rest of this signal transduction article could then be devoted to stimuli that do. I won't do it for a few days to give people time to voice an opinion on this one.

    Also, my idea behind packing the overview with references is to then expand on these references more in the actual article. I don't intend/haven't got time to keep up the level of referencing in the overview throughout the article! - K.murphy 12:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


    [edit] Where to put this info??

    I was trying to help reorganize and tidy, but couldn't figure the best place for this section...it seems a wee bit technical too, compared to the rest of the article! Any suggestions. I'll leave it here for the mo, feel free to add it back in where appropriate!! Ciar 05:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] I think I know were to put this info

    I thought the moved "Hormone recognition by transmembrane receptors" section covered some points that weren't covered in either the dissociation constant or hormone article, but didn't justify a new section in either. I didn't think signal transduction was a good place for it either. I've tried to incorporate the info it covered into dissociation constant and hormone

    K.murphy 20:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

    Glad you found a home for it. Seemed like a lot of work to waste!! Ciar 06:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Intracellular receptors

    Got another query from the main page. In the section that is titled Nuclear receptors, the first sentence reads:

    "Nuclear (or cytoplasmic) receptors are soluble proteins localized within the cytoplasm or the nucleoplasm."

    Wouldn't it be better to give this section the title Intracellular receptors, and then make two separate references (either as subheadings or just referenced in the text) to address nuclear receptors and cytoplasmic receptors?? The section pretty much focusses on nuclear receptors, but the actual cytoplasmic receptors aren't really mentioned yet....things like cytoplasmic pattern recognition receptors (NOD-like receptors, R proteins, RIG-1) ...and any that are outside of the immune system that I wouldn't know about ;-) Just a thought.Ciar 06:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] History?

    Anyone have information about the discovery of cell communication via transduction, like the guys who find it and how? I´m trying to find some info in my books but there is nothing, something about it?--ometzit<col> 20:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC) I've added a history section to the main article, is this helpfull to you? K.murphy 18:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

    Yeah thanks that should do the trick i can use that first article in medline as the beginning of transduction research. thnks xD--ometzit<col> 19:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    This section isn't really very informative. The only real information in those two paragraphs is that the term was first used in the early 70s and its use has increased in subsequent decades. There are most certainly landmark discoveries that can be enumerated here. Roadnottaken 21:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    Does as increase in the number of publications using the term not also reflect an increased amount of effort directed towards signal transduction research? Thats the idea I was trying to get across and only why I looked for the term in article titles or abstracts. If you know more recent landmark discoveries add them to the section, or write them here. I like your overview picture K.murphy 17:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Calcineurin

    Calcineurin might be good to work into the article somewhere, it shows a role for phosphatases in signal transduction as well as kinases K.murphy 22:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] That diagram

    I know it's only supposed be simple, but it places it looks just plain wrong to me. See Image_talk:Signal_transduction_v1.png. Joe D (t) 19:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


    [edit] Receptor Tyrosine Kinases - how are they switched off or controlled??

    There is no information about the control of signaling time at RTKs? They must be internalized, but I actually don't know how this is realized... Somebody add this please! fou-rire

    [edit] Please add a generic defintion for the link 'extra-cellular matrix components'

    Presently, the link 'extra-cellular matrix components' points to the entry for 'fibronectin', apparently a specific instance of the concept. Non-experts would appreciate this.

    Done K.murphy 08:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)