Talk:Organelle
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Which organelles are not bounded by membranes.
I created a disambiguation for The Organelle template has been updated to reflect the movement of the Hi guys. This page didn't help me understand what 'organelles' are. Can someone add a clear, defining intro sentence? Much appreciated. martin
I thought only plant cells had vakoules, the picture shows one and it's supposed to be a picture of an animal cell. Does animal cells have vakuoles? --Eribro 17:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
A vacuole is the equivelent of an air bubble. Plant cells usually have 1 or 2 large ones, but animal cells can have several but they are much smaller. Bartimaeus 13:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
This definition of Organelle is strongly misleading or the list of organelles is incomplete. I understand the reasoning behind the idea of including also some non membrane-enclosed organelles such as centrioles.
But to entitle ribosomes as organelles reaches out to far. First of all, their number (100000 to 10000000 per cell) is a major difference.
Secondly, what about proteasomes? Degradosomes? Chaperones? Members of each family are comparable in size and importance, yet they are not considered as organelles.
Defining 'organelle' seems surprisingly difficult - literature is not united on that. But to include protein complexes, just because they are large and have a certain function, doesn't make the definition of 'organelle' useful at all. --141.61.1.25 14:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)Stefan
I Agree
Ribosomes are not organelles. Organelles must be membrane bounded. While some people stretch the definition to include the cytoskeleton, even this isn't appropriate. I am a professor at a medical school, and find that this entry is misleading students... Sludtke42 20:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd say only membrane containing structures can be called organelles, and all nucleic acid and protein structures shouldn't be called organelles. The number of these structures should not be counted, as some nucleic acid and protein structures are degraded, so at some point their numbers can drop to 1, 2, ..., 10, but at other times can be in 1000s or 100000s (e.g. Reference [14] needs to be verified. I just checked the 12th edition of Campbell Biology and it states that ribosomes aren't considered organelles because they aren't membrane-bound. Neuroesoterica (talk) 13:05, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
In the German Wikipedia we are currently struggling with the correct definition of Organelle. It was sort of comforting that you have the same problem here... I came to the conclusion that different Authors use different definitions, sometimes limited to membrane bound organelles and sometimes including structures like centrioles. I feel that in this situation it would be helpful to know (and then to include in the article) who introduced the term and how it was then defined. Does anybody have an idea? If so, please let me know. The oldest usage I found (through Google Scholar) was 1919, [here] but it appears that it was already accepted nomenclature by then. If anyone could help, that would be great. --Dietzel65 14:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the Möbius origin for the term, Google Books may not have the original article, but it does have a correction to it, which is precisely of a sentence proposing use of the term 'Organula'. It is at [5]. -R. S. Shaw 20:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
No more Google Server errors now but I feel I still don't see what you are seeing. I am afraid this may be a consequence of this: "For users outside the U.S., we make determinations based on appropriate local laws." (Citation from Google Books help page). I don't think German an US copyright are much different when it comes to the expiration date but maybe the Google data base doesn't know that. When I do the search you suggested, I don't get a snippet view and I don't see the sentence that you cited in the paragraph just above. Anyway, this citation is most likely the first usage of Organulum, but I cannot find the exact reference. Is that from "Biologisches Centralblatt"? If so, I would probably be able to get the original tomorrow (Monday) if I had the volume and page number.--Dietzel65 15:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to the help of R. S. Shaw and several others on de:Diskussion:Organell and some digging through the literature I was able to compile a short history of the term organelle and its definition over time for the German Wikipedia (see de:Organell). I think it helps a lot to cope with the question of how organelles are defined, i.e. does a structure need to have a membrane to be an organelle. My conclusion is that two different definitions are currently in use and both should be reflected in the article. Accordingly the German organelle article got a complete make over (I am not planning to do this here, though). The tables in English version helped a lot to get this done in a reasonable (well, ) amount of time.
Anyway, to get back to the point, I felt I should give back to the English speaking and international community by translating the respective chapter and here it is. A problem that arose is that the new part does not really fit into the structure of the rest of the article. Which is suffering from the definition problem anyway and thus could use a make over.... Obviously, my selection of text books cited is leaning to German ones, maybe not appropriate for the English version. Feel free to improve this or my English, it's a wiki.
In case you care, I found the following structure helpful to reorganize the German Organell article:
--Dietzel65 22:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The first paragraph of "Examples" contains two statements I would like to discuss:
--Dietzel65 16:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Those sentences definitely need weakening, if not removal, in my view. Further, the very first sentence of the article, saying an organelle "is separately enclosed within its own lipid membrane" has to be modified. Some of the information in the new History and Terminology section shows these statements are way too strong. There are plenty of current usages of the term for non-membrane-enclosed structures. For instance, I have a 1998 book in front of me by Lynn Margulis which says early on, "Any visible structure inside a cell is an organelle." Google locomotion organelle and there are many scientific hits.
On the other hand, I'm sure some people are led to believe only membrane-enclosed structures can be organelles. For example, take Alberts et al. 4th edition (2002), a 1450-page mol bio college text. In the main text, the word is only used for membrane-enclosed structures (without regard to DNA), but the phrasing does not rule out other usages for organelle. However, the Glossary appendix, perhaps prepared by junior staff, defines organelle as "membrane-enclosed compartment in a eucaryotic cell that has a distinct structure, macromolecular composition, and function."
The W. article needs to make clear that the word is at times applied to non-membrane-enclosed structures since this is fact a long-established usage. I may do some rewriting of this stuff soonish if no substantial objections show up.
-R. S. Shaw 00:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
In the table of Major eukaryotic organelles, I inserted into the Chloroplast row the fact that kleptoplastic organisms are counted among plants and protists as containing chloroplasts. But because they are an unusual exception, I included it in small, parenthetical text. I found this to be permissible because 1) it is true and 2) it does not say anywhere that we are only allowed to list organisms which contain the organelle at birth. Kleptoplastic organisms may not be born with chloroplasts, but they do contain them and instead of consuming them, use them beneficially. Blue Danube (talk) 04:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Short question: Should not Granule (cell biology) have a note in thie article? Hubba (talk) 13:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
organelles are these weird fingz in biology — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.109.122 (talk) 10:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
The following content is someone's It would take several years before organulum, or the later term organelle, became accepted and expanded in meaning to include subcellular structures in multicellular organisms. Books around 1900 from Valentin Häcker,[1] Edmund Wilson[2]
and Oscar Hertwig[3] still referred to cellular organs. Later, both terms came to be used side by side: Bengt Lidforss wrote 1915 (in German) about "Organs or Organells"[4]
Around 1920, the term organelle was used to describe propulsion structures ("motor organelle complex", i.e., In his 1953 textbook, Max Hartmann used the term for extracellular (pellicula, shells, cell walls) and intracellular skeletons of protists.[8]
Later, the now widely used[9][10][11][12]
definition of organelle emerged, after which only cellular structures with surrounding membrane had been considered organelles.
However, the more original definition of subcellular functional unit in general still coexists.[13][14]
In 1978, Albert Frey-Wyssling suggested that the term organelle should refer only to structures that convert energy, such as centrosomes, ribosomes, and nucleoli.[15][16] This new definition, however, did not win wide recognition.
Am copying this here in case anyone wants to re-work it based on one or more sources that describe the history of the use of the term. Jytdog (talk) 13:14, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
hh — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:2C61:CF90:B150:9FF0:F317:ED97 (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
The introduction to the organelle is concise, and very easy to follow along with. The article has a nice flow throughout, which makes it very easy to read, and the charts listing the different major and minor organelles really helps in the overall organization. There are a few issues that I ran across though in reading through the article. Even though all of the information presented was relevant to the article, there were a few items that I feel should be omitted for clarity. Looking specifically at the section dealing with most biologists say organelle is synonymous with cell compartment, and some biologists refer to organelles as only those that contain DNA, these claims seem to be very broad. The claim that other biologists believe only those containing DNA are organelles, also seems to be a claim with very little evidence to support. In looking at several dictionaries and other reliable sources, no real evidence was found for the claim, and I felt this was a distraction in the article. In looking at the sources for the article, the sources seemed very reliable, but more up to date sources could really help in the improvement of this article. In just the last few years, the term organelle in itself seems to have been a term that is very difficult to pinpoint a precise definition of. Since the newest source in this article is from 2009, a look at the new definitions and standards of an organelle could greatly improve the quality of the article. Also, recent research and publications on organelle properties could help better distinguish what properties should determine the definition of an organelle. For instance, a more well rounded, textbook defined definition of the term organelle, could greatly improve the opening of this article. Overall, I found the article very easy to understand, but with a better defined definition of organelle, the omission or rephrasing of the opening paragraph in the types of organelles section, and more up to date sources for organelle properties, this article could continue to be improved.Perdue104 (talk) 01:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Reading through this article I feel that there are both good and bad qualities. The article is easy to follow and contains important sources that pertain to the subject at hand. Reading prior comments I agree with Shaw, that the term "membrane bound" should be omitted and replaced by another term such as "membrane bounded" or "membrane enclosed" <R.S.Shaw></R.S.Shaw>. Another improvement that could be made would be to clarify vital concepts such as the main definition of an organelle. The definition in this article seems to be vague and could be specified by prior research findings. I think it would be highly beneficial for dictionaries and research projects to be addressed and utilized toward a citeable, substantial term. I also think a vital addition to this article would be to add a labelled photo of a plant cell along with that of the animal cell. Overall, I think that this is an informative article. The only thing that I could think of enhancing would be the pinpointed organelle clarifications and older educational sources. Gabrielle Worley (talk) 03:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC) Flint16
The opening paragraphs of this article is critical to introducing the significance to organelles in cell biology. The article had great great flow of introductory information. However, I am on agreeable terms with the <Perdue104></Perdue104>. The article seems to have trouble determining a predominant definition to an organelle. Something that could improve on this cycle would be to omit statements that just seem like speculation of scientist with more scholarly valued statements. Most of this articles are cite with with the information pertained to the article. However, science is constantly developing and discovering new ways to explain underlying properties in cell biology. In <Perdue104></Perdue104>, I can only partially agree with the statements about updating some sources supporting the article. Specifically, in the the history of the organelles it is significant to retract to primitive attributes that helped illuminate the discovery. As a general article of organelles, it is appropriate to keep a general idea of what organelles are. Though, one suggestion could be the introduction between proteins and organelles, it could be interpreted as irrelevant to the article considering it introduces it in a couple of sentences. The statements could be best represented in the historical section of the article instead of its own section or expanded on its relation. This review is just critical analysis for an assignment in a cell biology course. Most of what is being reviewed is some suggestions to be looked at to improve the scholars reliability on the article.
Smith2152 (talk) 03:02, 1 October 2016 (UTC)Smith2152
Apparently there was an edit war, so I am suggesting that the admins make it so that only confirmed accounts can edit it. Thanks Captain Chicky (talk) 18:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
The tables are divided into Major and minor, but there seems to be no description of what this means. Please add a statement giving some idea of what it means, even if it is kind of subjective. Or alternately change the titles to be more descriptive, such as "Most common in number", or "Most universal among all Eukaryotic cells", or "most critical in function", or whatever the meaning is. DKEdwards (talk) 21:16, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. This article is supported by the Molecular and Cell Biology task force (assessed as Top-importance). Old comments
Vesicle/Vacuole
Ribosomes are organelles?
First usage of "Organelle"?
Wow, great answer! Thanks for the tip with Google books. I keep getting funny results though, where the publication date obviously does not fit the content of the snippets (around 1900 with heat shock protein details and the like) Anyway, I found this one [2]
which claims to be from 1877, that would predate Möbius if true.
I just ran another search with Organulum OR Organula OR Organella and found this [3]
from 1844 but I am afraid I don't read latin. I have the impression though that this is not about biology. This [4] French snippet seems to confirm the Möbius origin though. Very confusing, I'll try to find out more some other day, night is calling around here. --Dietzel65 21:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Word History and Definitions
Compartment and DNA containing
{{cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (help). Maybe they are semiautonomous after all... --Dietzel65 23:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)Chloroplasts in kleptoplastic organisms
Granule (cell biology)
Eine Neubildung dieser Organe oder Organellen findet wenigstens bei höheren Pflanzen nicht statt [A formation of these organs or organelles does not take place, at least in higher plants]
; also found in: Karl Chun; Wilhelm Johannsen; August Günthart (1915). Allgemeine Biologie. B. G. Tuebner. p. 227.
die Alternative: Organell oder Produkt der Strukturbildung
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (linkReview
Review
Review
Vandalism
Eukaryotic organelles ("Major/minor")