Cell Biology

Mapping variation in the morphological landscape of human cells with optical pooled CRISPRi screening

1. Ramon Lorenzo D. Labitigan
2. Adrian L. Sanborn
3. Cynthia V. Hao
4. Caleb K. Chan
5. Nathan M. Belliveau
6. Eva M. Brown
7. Mansi Mehrotra
8. Julie A. Theriot

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this important study by Theriot et al., the authors utilize an impressive set of innovative approaches to conduct a CRISPRi pooled screen in human cells using large-scale microscopy screen data. They leverage an improved barcoding approach to identify genes targeted in specific cells and examine the effects on cell morphology using high-dimensional phenotypic analysis. The method and data presented are compelling.

Reviewed by eLife

Neural network emulation of the human ventricular cardiomyocyte action potential for more efficient computations in pharmacological studies

1. Thomas Grandits
2. Christoph M Augustin
3. Gundolf Haase
4. Norbert Jost
5. Gary R Mirams
6. Steven A Niederer
7. Gernot Plank
8. András Varró
9. László Virág
10. Alexander Jung

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable prospective study develops a new tool to accelerate pharmacological studies by using neural networks to emulate the human ventricular cardiomyocyte action potential. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, based on using a large and high-quality dataset to train the neural network emulator. There are nevertheless a few areas in which the article may be improved through validating the neural network emulators against extensive experimental data. In addition, the article may be improved through delineating the exact speed-up achieved and the scope for acceleration. The work will be of broad interest to scientists working in cardiac simulation and quantitative system pharmacology.

Reviewed by eLife

Morphogen-driven human iPSCs differentiation in 3D in vitro models of gastrulation is precluded by physical confinement

1. Haneen S. Alsehli
2. Errin Roy
3. Thomas Williams
4. Alicja Kuziola
5. Yunzhe Guo
6. Jeremy Green
7. Eileen Gentleman
8. Davide Danovi

Reviewed by Review Commons

A novel imaging method (FIM-ID) reveals that myofibrillogenesis plays a major role in the mechanically induced growth of skeletal muscle

1. Kent W Jorgenson
2. Jamie E Hibbert
3. Ramy KA Sayed
4. Anthony N Lange
5. Joshua S Godwin
6. Paulo HC Mesquita
7. Bradley A Ruple
8. Mason C McIntosh
9. Andreas N Kavazis
10. Michael D Roberts
11. Troy A Hornberger

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The work by Hornberger and team presents a novel workflow for the visualisation of myofibrils with high resolution and contrast that will be highly valued by the scientific community. The methods include solid validation of both sample preparation and analysis, and have been used to make the fundamental discovery of myofibrillogenesis as the mechanism of mechanical loading-induced growth. Whether this mechanism is present in other settings of muscle growth (i.e., non-loading), other striated tissue (e.g myocardium), or is sex-dependent, will require future experiments.

Reviewed by eLife

Human dynein-dynactin is a fast processive motor in living cells

1. Vikash Verma
2. Patricia Wadsworth
3. Thomas J. Maresca

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In their short technical report, Verma et al. describe how endogenously-tagged dynein and dynactin molecules localize to growing microtubule plus-ends and move processively along microtubules in cells. The authors present solid evidence that cytoplasmic dynein is a processive motor that takes long excursions prior to dissociating from microtubules. However, there are concerns about the robustness of the imaging and analysis protocols, which should be more clearly defined. This is a useful study that will be of interest to cell biologists and biochemists in the motor protein field.

Reviewed by eLife

Bridge-like lipid transfer protein family member 2 suppresses ciliogenesis

1. Jan Parolek
2. Christopher G. Burd

Reviewed by Review Commons

An open-source, high-resolution, automated fluorescence microscope

1. Ando Christian Zehrer
2. Ana Martin-Villalba
3. Benedict Diederich
4. Helge Ewers

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study provides compelling evidence that the low-cost and open-hardware UC2 microscopy framework can be expanded to enable single-molecule localization microscopy. The authors managed to fit the instrumentation and control thereof in a unit that can be placed in a small stage-top-incubator. Together with providing adapted software for data acquisition and data analysis, the UC.STORM setup can rival the capabilities of comparable commercial instruments at a fraction of the costs.

Reviewed by eLife

Epigenetics and chromatin structure regulate var2csa expression and the placental binding phenotype in Plasmodium falciparum

1. Todd Lenz
2. Madle Sirel
3. Hannes Hoppe
4. Sulman Shafeeq
5. Karine Le Roch
6. Ulf Ribacke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors examined in detail the epigenetic changes and alterations in the subnuclear arrangement of a unique var gene associated with Plasmodium falciparum placental malaria. Although the observations are mainly confirmatory, the findings are valuable for theoretical considerations and practical applications. Applying the latest methods for the analysis of histone marks, transcriptomics, DNA methylation, and chromosome conformation, the authors provide observations that are convincing, thus making their claims appropriate.

Reviewed by eLife

Liver regeneration by a population of midzone-located mesenchymal-hepatocyte hybrid cells

1. Guo Yu
2. Shaoyang Zhang
3. Ana Romo
4. Soma Biswas
5. Baojie Li
6. Jing Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study is partly useful as it corroborates what is already known about the elevated proliferation capacity of mid lobular hepatocytes in liver regeneration. Lineage tracing and scRNAseq studies are powerful for the investigation of such heterogeneous hepatocyte proliferation capacity. Nevertheless, based on experimental limitations, incomplete method description and inadequate data analyses the presented data are insufficient to support the proposed conclusions of a mesenchymal-hepatocyte hybrid population in the murine liver.

Reviewed by eLife

CDK-4 regulates nucleolar size and metabolism at the cost of late-life fitness in C. elegans

1. Rachel Webster
2. Maria Quintana
3. Ran Kafri
4. W Brent Derry

Reviewed by Arcadia Science