Cell Biology

Visualizing sarcomere and cellular dynamics in skeletal muscle to improve cell therapies

1. Judith Hüttemeister
2. Franziska Rudolph
3. Michael H Radke
4. Claudia Fink
5. Dhana Friedrich
6. Stephan Preibisch
7. Martin Falcke
8. Eva Wagner
9. Stephan E Lehnart
10. Michael Gotthardt

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study offers valuable information on how titin derived from different nuclei within the syncytium is organized and integrated during skeletal muscle development and remodeling. The authors developed a novel mCherry titin knock-in mice with the fluorophore mCherry inserted into titin's Z-disk region to track the titin during cell fusion. The approach using mcherry adds to understanding of the role and localization of titin in controlling stiffness of striated muscles and fine tuning contraction. The results demonstrate that the integration of titin into the sarcomere is tightly regulated, with its unexpected mobility aiding in the uniform distribution of titin post-cell fusion. Although the experimental approach is convincing, the work is very qualitative in its approaches, and the data needs rigorous statistical analysis. There is a need for some clarification concerning numbers of animals and control groups. Future studies will need more rigorous data analysis and interpretation.

Reviewed by eLife

Endogenous oligomer formation underlies DVL2 condensates and promotes Wnt/β-catenin signaling

1. Senem Ntourmas
2. Martin Sachs
3. Petra Paclíková
4. Martina Brückner
5. Vítězslav Bryja
6. Jürgen Behrens
7. Dominic B Bernkopf

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study contributes to the understanding of phase separation in Dishevelled (DVL) proteins, by investigating the endogenous complexes of DVL2 using ultracentrifugation and contrasting them with DVL1 and DVL3 behaviour and the functional validation of the DVL2 intrinsically disordered regions mediating the protein condensate. The study includes a solid characterisation of several overexpression constructs, including in KO cells. However, investigations of the roles of the described DVL2 regions at the endogenous level remain to be carried out.

Reviewed by eLife

GDF2 and BMP10 coordinate liver cellular crosstalk to maintain liver health

1. Dianyuan Zhao
2. Ziwei Huang
3. Xiaoyu Li
4. Huan Wang
5. Qingwei Hou
6. Yuyao Wang
7. Fang Yan
8. Wenting Yang
9. Di Liu
10. Shaoqiong Yi
11. Chunguang Han
12. Yanan Hao
13. Li Tang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study delineates the cellular contributions of BMP signaling in liver development and function. The findings are convincing, and the study employs state-of-the-art molecular, genetic, and cellular approaches to demonstrate that hepatic stellate cells play a central role in liver health by mediating cell-to-cell crosstalk via the production of specific BMP proteins. This study will be of interest to scientists interested in developmental biology and organ physiology.

Reviewed by eLife

The sperm hook as a functional adaptation for migration and self-organized behavior

1. Heungjin Ryu
2. Kibum Nam
3. Byeong Eun Lee
4. Yundon Jeong
5. Seunghun Lee
6. Jeongmo Kim
7. Young-Min Hyun
8. Jae-Ick Kim
9. Jung-Hoon Park

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study uses ex vivo live imaging of uteri post-mating to test the role of the sperm hook in the house mouse sperm in sperm movement that would be interesting to evolutionary biologists. The significance of the work is useful as live imaging can reveal information not seen in fixed images. The strength of evidence is incomplete as they cannot directly test the role of the sperm hook in facilitating movement along the uterine wall.

Reviewed by eLife

Identification of ERAD-dependent degrons for the endoplasmic reticulum lumen

1. Rachel Sharninghausen
2. Jiwon Hwang
3. Devon D Dennison
4. Ryan D Baldridge

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study identifies a short amino acid sequence that, when fused in multimeric form to the amino termini of luminal ER proteins, initiates proteasomal degradation via the Hrd1 ER quality control ubiquitin ligase complex. The authors provide solid evidence that this sequence functions as a "degron" for ER proteins. Future work is required to obtain a more detailed view of the properties of this degron, the mechanisms underlying its recognition by ER-resident and cytoplasmic factors, and the in vivo relevance of the findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Formation of a giant unilocular vacuole via macropinocytosis-like process confers anoikis resistance

1. Jeongsik Kim
2. Dahyun Kim
3. Dong-Kyun Kim
4. Sang-Hee Lee
5. Wonyul Jang
6. Dae-Sik Lim

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study reports the formation of a new organelle, called giant unilocular vacuole (GUVac), in mammary epithelial cells through a macropinocytosis-like process. The evidence supporting conclusions is convincing, using state-of-the-art cell biology techniques. This work will be of interest to cell biologists and contribute to the understanding of cell survival mechanisms against anoikis.

Reviewed by eLife

Automated workflow for the cell cycle analysis of (non-)adherent cells using a machine learning approach

1. Kourosh Hayatigolkhatmi
2. Chiara Soriani
3. Emanuel Soda
4. Elena Ceccacci
5. Oualid El Menna
6. Sebastiano Peri
7. Ivan Negrelli
8. Giacomo Bertolini
9. Gian Martino Franchi
10. Roberta Carbone
11. Saverio Minucci
12. Simona Rodighiero

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper presents a valuable automated method to track individual mammalian cells as they progress through the cell cycle using the FUCCI system. The authors have developed a technique for analyzing cells that grow in suspension and used their method to look at different tumor cell lines that grow in suspension and determine the effect of drugs that directly affect the cell cycle. They show solid evidence that the method can be applied to both adherent and non-adherent cell lines. This paper will be of interest to cell biologists investigating cell cycle effects.

Reviewed by eLife

Negative regulation of APC/C activation by MAPK-mediated attenuation of Cdc20Slp1 under stress

1. Li Sun
2. Xuejin Chen
3. Chunlin Song
4. Wenjing Shi
5. Libo Liu
6. Shuang Bai
7. Xi Wang
8. Jiali Chen
9. Chengyu Jiang
10. Shuang-min Wang
11. Zhou-qing Luo
12. Ruiwen Wang
13. Yamei Wang
14. Quan-wen Jin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The regulation of mitosis and the dynamics of the mitotic spindle in it are central to cell division with high fidelity and crucial for normal division and development and defects therein can lead to disease. A key component of ensuring the fidelity is the "spindle assembly checkpoint". This valuable study using convincing experimental approaches in fission yeast has revealed novel links between the MAP-kinase signalling pathway modulating the spindle assembly checkpoint.

Reviewed by eLife

Feedback regulation by the RhoA-specific GEF ARHGEF17 regulates actomyosin network disassembly

1. Vasundhara Rao
2. Benjamin Grädel
3. Lucien Hinderling
4. Jakobus Van Unen
5. Olivier Pertz

Reviewed by preLights

Neurons enhance blood–brain barrier function via upregulating claudin-5 and VE-cadherin expression due to glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor secretion

1. Lu Yang
2. Zijin Lin
3. Ruijing Mu
4. Wenhan Wu
5. Hao Zhi
6. Xiaodong Liu
7. Hanyu Yang
8. Li Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This revised study presents valuable evidence that a combination of endothelial cells, astrocytes, and neuroblastoma cells of human origin can integrate to form an in vitro brain blood barrier, that recapitulates key aspects of its natural counterpart, especially at short times. Convincingly, the mechanism by which neuroblastoma-secreted GDNF increases Claudin-5 and VE-cadherin is described. To substantiate the role of GDNF in vivo, authors demonstrated that knock-down of this neurotrophic factor, increased the permeability of the brain blood barrier in mice. This in vitro system can be used to study the permeability of the human brain blood barrier to different drugs.

Reviewed by eLife