Talk:21-Hydroxylase

Page name

@Facts707, Anthony Appleyard, and Ajpolino: Concerning the recent page move, as was pointed out above, per Wikipedia chemistry naming conventions the "h" in hydroxylase should be capitalized. Also it is recommended to avoid starting sentences with a number or abbreviation. By extension, titles should follow this recommendation. Finally the IUBMB accepted name for this enzyme is Steroid 21-monooxygenase. Hence I suggest that the page be move to the IUBMB accepted name. There is a redirect by the same page name with a page history that is currently blocking this page move. Thoughts? Boghog (talk) 07:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Facts707, Boghog, and Ajpolino: If general usage among organic chemists and biological chemists is to call this enzyme "21-hydroxylase" starting with a number, then some would say that we better follow suit. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:03, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • There seems to be a clear differences between fields. Within the field of enzymology, the more specific "steroid 21-monooxygenase" is the preferred name. Within the medical field, 21-hydroxylase (as in 21-hydroxylase deficiency) is used. This page is primarily about the enzyme, not its deficiency (for which there is a separate page), hence the preferred enzymology name should take precedence. Also concerning determining the preferred capitalization (where page names should follow sentence case), how does one even restrict a Google Scholar search to the first word of a sentence or title? In my Google Scholar Search, most of the occurrences of 21-hydroxylase occur in the middle, not the beginning of sentences (consistent with style guide recommendations). Nothing can be concluded about capitalization from these examples. In the first six hits that I ran across where the search term was either in title case or started a sentence, four of the six capitalized the "h":

• upper case
• lower case but in PubMed abstract upper case
• upper case
• upper case upper case
• lower case
• upper case

If we stick with the 21-hydroxylase name, I propose this page be moved back to "21-Hydroxylase". Boghog (talk) 10:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for the pings. I have no opinion on whether the title should be capitalized -- it's fine to my eyes either way. As far as alternative titles, from a quick Pubmed search it appears Steroid 21-hydroxylase is almost as common in recent papers as "21-hydroxylase". Steroid 21-monooxygenase is occasionally used, but most papers (on Pubmed) with "Steroid 21-monooxygenase" in their abstracts actually use 21-hydroxylase/steroid 21-hydroxylase in their titles and present "Steroid 21-monoxygenase" only as an alternative name. I see the appeal of using IUBMB recommended names throughout; it's quick, neat, and consistent. But when an alternative name is far more common, my preference is we stick with the commonly used name as the article title. Happy to hear others' thoughts. Ajpolino (talk) 00:35, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Like Sterol 14-demethylase‎ C-5 sterol desaturase, Sterol/Steroid always mentioned in Wikipedia Page name.--Htmlzycq (talk) 05:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Anthony Appleyard and Facts707:. The justification for the recent page move to lowercase 21-hydroxylase was Google Scholar shows "21-hydroxylase" predominates. Google scholar actually shows just the opposite. Chemical and enzyme names are common nouns and hence only capitalized if they occur at the beginning of sentences. Most occurrences of 21-hydroxylase in Google Scholar occur in the middle of sentences where nothing can be concluded about capitalization. As shown by the linked examples above where 21-hydroxylase occurs at the beginning of sentences or in sentences which are in title case, upper case 21-Hydroxylase predominates. Also per Wikipedia chemistry naming conventions the "h" in 21-hydroxylase should be capitalized. Therefore I request that the page be moved back to uppercase 21-Hydroxylase. Boghog (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done Per WP:CHEMPREFIX, move page back to uppercase 21-Hydroxylase. Boghog (talk) 02:23, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

@Boghog, Anthony Appleyard, and Ajpolino: Hi all, just catching up with this thread. Firstly my apologies, I didn't realize the title case was of much concern; I don't move pages or request non-technical moves too often, but when I do they're usually pretty clear and accepted. In this case, I could have figured a disciplined field like chem would have more detailed naming conventions. I created the WP:CHEMPREFIX shortcut yesterday when I read through the thread. To my eyes, tert-Butyl alcohol looks fine but 21-Hydroxylase looks out of place. Nonetheless there is a clear policy in place and so thanks Boghog for taking the time to set things straight. Also thanks to the other editors who helped out in good faith as we worked through it. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 08:30, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

No problem Facts707 and thanks creating the WP:CHEMPREFIX short cut. I am also glad that we could work this out. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Leaping in with only a cursory glance at the content - with respect, I think this is a little overanalyzed - CYP-descriptor tends to be used in describing the coding genes - and I have been on a bit of a rant about target audience, it is likely not worth anymore dialog - I have never really thought of the matter previously - in drug dev. CYP xyz is common among researchers - I suspect it is just easier when discussing a topic - Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 23:08, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

A few observations and thoughts -

Per MM's focus - I looked at this document - had a few comments, it has a GA status - I am not sure that is relevant to the following comments.

My comments align with my thinking on the CYP4F2 enzyme article - opening this up to a wider audience is likely not a lot of heavy lifting.

I have made a bold comment - that I am never sure of the real target audience of many of these fairly technical articles on WP - and my comments are all focused one the single goal of expanding the consummability of such articles. And I know folks do not like bolds and such - but for me it adds emphasis - as why to why I ever made the comment.

A few casual observations:

1. So walking the comment on the page name back - CYP usually refers to encoding genes, though the term CYP enzymes/proteins has been in common use - like forever. Most academic work does state CYP enzyme and then mentions protein by standard chemical function - what it actually chemically does - think this is clear in the infobox.
2. I was going to casually wordsmith some lede terms likely make a good faith efforts to perhaps target this to a British A level student, 18+ exam - this makes some sense and A level Biology/Chemistry is not a bad standard to align this with - it roughly aligns with US freshman Biochem and the effort to tone this all to this level appears a good goal. Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 22:58, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Let us see what can we do about it.

One thing is that we can move all other names from the lead text to the infobox. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 23:28, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Indeed - I did get a tad bold - as I stated, in research - I normally hear CYP xyz in discussion - in publications the atual formal enzymatic name is likely the standard - I do not think it is a big deal - think the other article was CYP4F2 - consistency is not a bad thing.

BeingObjective (talk) 23:38, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Steroid 21-hydroxylase

I had to check this substrate-enzyme name - it seems to check out.

Nearly all enzymes end with the suffix of “-ase.” Generally, the names are of the form “substrate or product – reaction catalyzed.” For example, lactate dehydrogenase is for an enzyme that removes a hydrogen (plus 2e–, i.e., a hydride) from lactate, yielding the carbonyl in pyruvate.https://iubmb.qmul.ac.uk/enzyme/rules.html#:~:text=Systematic%20names%20consist%20of%20two,Rule%208.

BeingObjective (talk) 01:02, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@ Maxim Masiutin The more I say it in my head - yup, the more it sounds fine.

BeingObjective (talk) 01:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean that we should mention that in the article? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 12:24, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

You mean the 'etymology' of why is should be called steroid 21-hydroxylase?

Likely, yes.

I suppose if one of the driving ideas here (and of WP) is to make knowledge more accessible - and I do feel many of the science/technology articles are highly presumptive and do assume the reader is likely at least an undergraduate life-scientist - then yes.

Expanding again - I am now writing to what I have been calling an O or A-level, British student - 16 to 18+ examinations. Not sure of your familiarity with the UK's education system - it is where I started from - so I am familiar with the materials generally presented.

Education in the United Kingdom

It is a hard balance, one does not want to spend half the article defining what the writer assumes is a base knowledge.

There is likely a WP article discussing this.

BeingObjective (talk) 14:10, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is a hard balance, I agree. Still, for an explanation of more than a few words it probably would be better to point the reader to a general article, for example on why enzymes are called -ase Maxim Masiutin (talk) 15:54, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I have no issues with this - I think it was fairly heavily discussed - I would have not considered the topic except for the fairly lengthy debate amongst three editors. Yes, if a reader is interested, they will dig deeper - though in the article - I did see three different legacy usages - consistency should be a basic requirement - one hopes. BeingObjective (talk) 16:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Pseudogenes

Fixed it - I think.

Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 18:41, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Maxim Masiutin

I messed up the text flow around the infobox - HELP!

"Pseudogenes are common in genomes, and they originate as artifacts during the duplication process. Research has shown that retaining these faulty copies has a beneficial role, often providing regulation of their parent genes."

BeingObjective (talk) 18:36, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I think that you didn't mess anything. It is just Wikipedia formats text that way. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The protein area is rather light weight.

@Maxim Masiutin

I think the protein discussion area is lightweight - I sense this was written by molecular biology type and not a biochemist.

There are many metrics that define proteins - not even sure m/wt is in there - this is an area that could have more data from an analytical biochemistry perspective.

Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 18:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you have an idea on where to take this data from, so it could be noteworthy, not mere a repetition of data from infobox, which is discouraged by WP:MCBMOS? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 19:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

This is blunt, but I actually really do have the background in this knowledge domain - I am not trying to offend in any manner.

I did not/do not see it in the infobox - is it there, did I miss it? It was not there in an apparent manner - perhaps in the links - or perhaps I totally missed it.

Correct me please if it is there.

Sure it is noteworthy - how do you define a protein - - genes - proteins - protein functionality -- etc.

What characteristics does a protein have???

Amino acid composition would be a super basic add - I did not see this and I see a lot of sophisticated dialog on protein folding - I know this is total CLOP and I think it needs to be changed.

Who really understands those two paragraphs - not the editor!!!

This looks verbatim - from an academic piece. Was this not picked up in the GA review: I can likely find the article it came from.

I doubt many actually would understand the ideas in this section - they likely would understand more basic information.

This is was originally written by a person with a molecular biology background - it is in the talk section - it is light on the actual protein - adding a crystallography image does not make it more accessible - it is interesting - but not sure how I'd use that data - I think the pathology section is much better - I thought you wanted to expand and make this data more consumable - did you have a change of heart?

Protein folding is a world of hurt - and is not something usually well understood by the target A level student I mentioned.

Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

You are right, it would have been worth expanding the protein section, however, I'm not very skilled in proteins, and thank you for your edits of this section! I agree that it is not consumable for a person without a background, and I also don't have a background that would have allowed me to explain in simple terms.

Infoboxes are various boxes at the right of the text that list identifiers and sometimes properties. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:12, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I might be being a bit blunt - so sincere apologies.

I do think this article is one of the better of its type.

We are in total agreement, these are not the easiest articles to write - and correctly target to an audience and I really have no 'super powers' as to how to calibrate them - I do think even with an internal link - a little expansion does help - the pseudogene expansion as an example.

Much has changed in the world of molecular biology - and it is not my strength in 2023. So, I am certainly learning things from collaborating with you on these articles - I do not wish to offend you - you have been very understanding and helpful - kind of a rarity here IMHO.

My changes do need to be seriously challenged, I rather doubt I'd make any significant changes without your secondary checks and challenges - I do not note any other editors offering more than minor typo/citation formatting corrections.

I am truly shocked on the PCI-DES work that another med. pro has not commented - the changes were dramatic and I was expecting some push back -

BeingObjective (talk) 20:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I also sometimes feel uneasy when no one corrects or comments on my changes. Perhaps this is because people agree with the edits, or they don't have time to follow up. As for DES, they probably are happy with your edits. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Naming - a final dialog.

• 1.14.14.16
• 21-OHase
• CYP21
• CYP21B
• Cytochrome P-450c21
• Cytochrome P450 21
• Cytochrome P450 XXI
• Cytochrome P450-C21
• Cytochrome P450-C21B

https://go.drugbank.com/polypeptides/P08686 BeingObjective (talk) 18:59, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

This is neither a definitive nor complete list that presents at https://go.drugbank.com/polypeptides/P08686 because there are other names in the academic literature not found in this list; still this lists give a few names not even used once in the literature. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 19:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you think the link is incorrect? It does point out there is an inconsistency - real world vernacular etc.

I think the article has settled on a term and I do not want to raise yet another dialog - steroid 21-hydroxylase is fine and always was.

That was not why I added this.

I mentioned most R&D types would likely say CYP21 - and really talk to the gene and the protein - one would need to know the context - I get this info is not relevant to a WP article - it is an example of the real world versus google searches - did you review the link?

Cheers -

BeingObjective (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The term "Steroid 21-hydroxylase" is based on Uniprot as suggested by WP:MCBMOS. https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P08686/entry

The name CYP21 is mostly an abbreviation.

We had the same discussion on CYP4F2, where an editor suggested to use the Uniprot name. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

This section - if you want to expand - clarify make accessible - needs to think of the target audience.

There is a lot in this section - and to me - is leans to CLOP -

It contains an evolutionary conserved core of a four α-helix bundle, two additional alpha helices, two sets of β-sheets, and a heme cofactor binding loop.

Each subunit in the human enzyme consists of a total of 13 α-helices and 9 β-strands that folds into a triangular prism-like tertiary structure. The iron(III) heme group that defines the active site resides in the center of each subunit.

The human enzyme binds one substrate at a time. In contrast, the well-characterized bovine enzyme can bind two substrates. The human and bovine enzyme share 80% amino acid sequence identity, but are structurally different, particularly in loop regions, and also evident in secondary structure elements. BeingObjective (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea on how it passed GA with that text. If I knew how to write this text simpler, I would have done that. I agree that the audience is not a wide audience. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Reference style

According to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers, the editors should refrain from altering the style of elements such as date format, units, and so on, within an article unless there is a significant reason that is not merely a preference for a different style. Engaging in revert-wars over optional styles is not acceptable. If a consensus cannot be reached through discussion regarding the style to be used in an article, the style established by the first major contributor should be respected. My understanding is that this rule also applies to reference formats. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:38, 3 December 2023 (UTC)