The Gene Wiki is a project within Wikipedia that aims to describe the relationships and functions of all human

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

s. It was established to transfer information from scientific resources to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

stub articles. The Gene Wiki project also initiated publication of gene-specific review articles in the journal ''Gene'', together with the editing of the gene-specific pages in Wikipedia.

Project goals and scope

Number of gene articles

The

human genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the n ...

contains an estimated 20,000–25,000

protein-coding genes The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the n ...

. The goal of the Gene Wiki project is to create seed articles for every

notable Notability is the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction. It also refers to the capacity to be such. Persons who are notable due to public responsibi ...

human gene, that is, every gene whose function has been assigned in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Approximately half of human genes have assigned function, therefore the total number of articles seeded by the Gene Wiki project would be expected to be in the range of 10,000–15,000. To date, approximately 11,000 articles have been created or augmented to include Gene Wiki project content.

Expansion

Once seed articles have been established, the hope and expectation is that these will be

annotated An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information. It can be a note that includes a comment or explanation. Annotations are sometimes presented in the margin of book pages. For ann ...

and expanded by editors ranging in experience from the lay audience to students to professionals and academics.

Proteins encoded by genes

The majority of genes encode

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

s hence understanding the function of a gene generally requires understanding of the function of the corresponding protein. In addition to including basic information about the gene, the project therefore also includes information about the protein encoded by the gene.

Gene Wiki generated content

Stubs for the Gene Wiki project are created by a bot and contain links to the following primary gene/protein databases: *

HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) is a committee of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) that sets the standards for human gene nomenclature. The HGNC approves a ''unique'' and ''meaningful'' name for every known human gene, based on a ...

– official gene name *

Entrez The Entrez (pronounced ''ɒnˈtreɪ'') Global Query Cross-Database Search System is a federated search engine, or web portal that allows users to search many discrete health sciences databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information ...

– Gene database *

OMIM Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) is a continuously updated catalog of human genes and genetic disorders and traits, with a particular focus on the gene-phenotype relationship. , approximately 9,000 of the over 25,000 entries in OMIM r ...

(Mendelian Inheritance in Man) – database that catalogues all the known diseases with a genetic component * Amigo –

Gene Ontology The Gene Ontology (GO) is a major bioinformatics initiative to unify the representation of gene and gene product attributes across all species. More specifically, the project aims to: 1) maintain and develop its controlled vocabulary of gene and g ...

HomoloGene HomoloGene, a tool of the United States National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), is a system for automated detection of homologs (similarity attributable to descent from a common ancestor) among the annotated genes of several complet ...

– gene

homologs A couple of homologous chromosomes, or homologs, are a set of one maternal and one paternal chromosome that pair up with each other inside a cell during fertilization. Homologs have the same genes in the same loci where they provide points alon ...

in other species * SymAtlasRNA –

gene expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

pattern in tissues *

Protein Data Bank The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a database for the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. The data, typically obtained by X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, or, increasingly, cry ...

– 3D

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

of protein encoded by the gene *

UniProt UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

(universal protein resource) – a central repository of protein data

Response

A report found that between 2013 and 2017, the content which Gene Wiki contributed to Wikipedia got crowdsourced development over time.

References

External links

* * * * {{cite journal , title = Big data: Wikiomics , author = Mitch Waldrop , date = 3 September 2008 , journal = Nature , volume = 455 , issue = 7209 , pages =22–25 , doi = 10.1038/455022a , pmid = 18769412 , doi-access = free History of Wikipedia Wikis *