Talk:Cell biology

Dear fellow Wiki members! The statement in the last sentence concerning the nucleic acid under Cellular Components - Structures is misleading in my opinion, isn't it? The sentences "Prokaryotic genetic material is organized in a simple circular structure that rests in the cytoplasm. Eukaryotic genetic material is more complex and is divided into discrete units called genes.[2]" imply that genes occur only in eukaryotic organisms which is obviously not the case.

I would suggest to simply replace the last eight words with the words "is organized in a more complex structure" unless someone amplifies this point in more detail (e.g. chromosomes etc.). This would result in: "Prokaryotic genetic material is organized in a simple circular structure that rests in the cytoplasm. Eukaryotic genetic material is organized in a more complex structure.[2]"

Today I completed the German version of (an older version of) this article and decided to solve the issue there according to this approach.

Another option that includes the statement about genes is to point out that both prokaryotes and eukaryotes have genes, but that the eukaryotic structure of genes is more complex than the prokaryotic one. One possible version following this thought would be e.g. "Prokaryotic genetic material is organized in a simple circular structure that rests in the cytoplasm. Eukaryotic genetic material is organized in a more complex structure.[2] Also at the level of the genes the eukaryotes show a more elaborate structure of their genes than the prokaryotes." [The latter store their information more compact from this point of view, but that's another topic.]

--TRNA 11:52, 30 October 2010 (PDT)

The most recent editing of 25 October 2010, at 17:16 follows this article discussion and solves the issue exhaustively.

--TRNA 11:52, 30 October 2010 (PDT)