Talk:Metabolic engineering

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This page is being update as part of a class project for the senior Chemical Engineering elective, Metabolic Engineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at University of Maryland, College Park.

Reviews:

I added a few citation needed to the article. Major Concerns:

The term 'metabolic engineering' emerged in the 1990’s to describe bacteria that had been genetically engineered using the strategy of removing, one by one, the most restrictive bottlenecks in a metabolic pathway and the recombinant DNA technology. ^ This sentence is not a clear definition, and the end of it doesn't make sense. For the history possiby mention that the first book was published by Stephanopoulous in 199X and a dedicated journal began publication in 199X. "As the world population is growing, oil, food and energy prices are likely to climb. The challenge is not to stop using tires, eating or buying oil and clothes . Rather, it’s about developing alternative, more sustainable ingredients from which to produce the products we rely on. Recent advances in metabolic engineering are helping us prepare for and meet these most pressing challenges." ^ This sounds like a call to arms, or an advertisement not an encyclopedia. The example of Metabolic Flux Analysis hardly reads like an encyclopedic entry. It isn't very clear to follow either if I had no idea what was going on. In simple terms, the goal is to calculate theoretical yield, which absent of the network would be 6/7, (85.7%) but with network constraints including cofactor balances it becomes 3/7 Then with a modified network, it increases back to 6/7. The goal of the analysis is finding the best way to remove the bottlenecks. It also involves implementing the proposed changes, and analyzing how the cell responds, which looking at the paper shows that it does not operate anywhere near the theoretical yield, which you do not mention. Now since PYR no longer leaves the cell, DAHP now gets 6 moles for every seven moles of glucose that eneters the cell. ^ Pyr never leaves the cell, it leaves the system you are analyzing.

The last section is good, and should probably be placed above the example. It needs more refinement, and more links. Mfconway (talk) 19:30, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Summary: Article and changes mainly concern themselves with introducing and exemplifying the history and utility of metabolic engineering, discussing previous methods for achieving similar goals, introducing current technologies, problems and solutions, and introducing the engineering behind the production of DAHP.

Main Issues: The main things I think the article needs to cover in greater detail is the mass balancing and computational methods used in metabolic engineering. The article presents the scenario and results but doesn’t talk much about the actual work required to find the answers that are presented. You can talk about research into computational methods for finding solution spaces, extreme pathway methods, the stoichiometric matrix, or any of the other math that’s required.

Minor Issues: The citation style is appropriate for a journal article but is inconsistent with Wikipedia standards, use the format typically used for Wikipedia instead. Also, internal Wikipedia links are generally not italicized: that’s usually reserved for external links, I think. Tagelied (talk) 02:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Very nicely written, however at certain points you introduce topics but don’t explain further like under the 5 groups of metabolic manipulation, maybe just adding a brief example for each. Another suggestion would be some additional figures to refer to for each section, and be mindful of the tone of Wikipedia, it should read more as a dictionary than an essay. Also your example refers to the DHAP problem we had in class, which I believe actually comes from a journal article; so perhaps including that would make the example better. You may also want to more clearly define the differences between metabolic and genetic engineering. Also to follow general Wikipedia format you may want to add a few sentences under the main titles (metabolic pathway manipulation and metabolic flux analysis) briefly explaining metabolic pathway manipulation. But overall it was informative and understandable to less knowledgeable audiences. From the Stable Isotope Group — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ench468MF11 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Instructor review

You have to cite the sentences you add to the article. Placing a citation at the end of a group of sentences or paragraph will not suffice. See Wikipedia featured articles for examples on how to cite.

You need to identify the metabolic engineering examples mentioned in the "History and ..." section as such. You could say: "Some examples of metabolic engineering include: (i) ... (ii) ... " thus providing future editors a place to add more examples.

The verb "overexpress" is usually spelt without a hyphen, but there is also the other school of thought that uses a hyphen. Either use my suggestion or check your source for the correct spelling.

Replace "with various chain lengths and functionalities, which have the potential to create biofuels and chemicals" with "which can potentially be catalytically converted to biofuels and chemicals" and cite a source. The original paper itself may have a source.

"The first step in the process is to identify a desired product. Reactions and metabolic pathways that are able to create this product ..." -- metabolic engineering usually focuses on a product, but does not always have to. Metabolic engineering is broadly defined as improving an organism's properties through metabolic manipulation.

Try as much as possible to not mention specific databases and tools and leave other ones out. There are more tools than the ones we covered in class, so you have to be fair to the others. When you do have to mention a database or tool that is available online, providing a link will be nice.

"Most genes that are incorporated in this way are taken from a different species." I am not sure if this is accurate. If you are sure, supplement with a citation.

The subsections "Analyzing a Metabolic Pathway", "Determining the Optimal Genetic Manipulations" and to some extent "Experimental Measurements" are hyperspecialized. A reader reading the "Analyzing ..." section almost needs a pencil and paper to follow it. You need to abbreviate, condense and rewrite these sections so that general readers can understand it.

The DAHP section can be integrated into the examples I listed above. This section is also hyperspecialized and requires pencil and paper to follow (particularly given that the figure is not adequately annotated). The accompanying figure needs an explanatory legend that explains to a reader what is going on in it.

As per Wikipedia style, headings of sections should be in sentence case, not title case.

Don't italicize a word unless there is a clear reason for doing so (e.g. the word is part of a species name). The "History and ..." section has almost a dozen words in italics. Astoundingly "glutamicum" is not in italics when it should be!

UM BIOE120 Instructor (talk) 04:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello Wikipedia

My name is baraa I'm a master's student at uskuder university and this is my final exam assignment Braa Elwaleed (talk) 14:00, 24 January 2023 (UTC)