Cell Biology

Neutral sphingomyelinase 1 regulates cellular fitness at the level of ER stress and cell cycle

1. Dolma Choezom
2. Julia Christina Gross

Reviewed by Review Commons

Recruitment of Polo-like kinase couples synapsis to meiotic progression via inactivation of CHK-2

1. Liangyu Zhang
2. Weston T. Stauffer
3. John S. Wang
4. Fan Wu
5. Zhouliang Yu
6. Chenshu Liu
7. Abby F. Dernburg

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Zhang et al. present convincing data describing a role for Polo-like kinase PLK-2 in restricting the activity of Chk2 kinase and coordinating synapsis of homologous chromosomes with the progression of meiotic prophase in C. elegans. By revealing PLK-2-dependent and -independent mechanisms of CHK-2 activity, this work provides a valuable understanding of the major regulators of meiotic progression.

Reviewed by eLife

Autofluorescence imaging permits label-free cell type assignment and reveals the dynamic formation of airway secretory cell associated antigen passages (SAPs)

1. Viral S Shah
2. Jue Hou
3. Vladimir Vinarsky
4. Jiajie Xu
5. Manalee V Surve
6. Charles P Lin
7. Jayaraj Rajagopal

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This interesting and important methodologic study presents exciting new data identifying approaches to evaluating the cell biology of lung disease. Namely, the ability to identify and track dynamic and coordinated activities of multiple composite cell types in response to experimental interventions. They have developed an interesting label-free approach that collects biologically-encoded autofluorescence of epithelial cells by 2-photon imaging of mouse tracheal explant culture over 2 days. This study has the potential to inform a variety of experimental conditions in lung injury and repair.

Reviewed by eLife

Hsp47 promotes biogenesis of multi-subunit neuroreceptors in the endoplasmic reticulum

1. Ya-Juan Wang
2. Xiao-Jing Di
3. Pei-Pei Zhang
4. Xi Chen
5. Marnie P Williams
6. Dong-Yun Han
7. Raad Nashmi
8. Brandon J Henderson
9. Fraser J Moss
10. Ting-Wei Mu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study defines new functions for the ER-resident protein HSP47 in the quality control of multi-pass membrane receptor proteins. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, with rigorous biochemical assays employed in appropriate models. However, additional consideration regarding the mechanism of HSP47-dependent regulation of membrane protein quality control would have strengthened the study. This work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and biochemists interested in the fields of proteostasis membrane protein quality control, and neuroreceptor signaling.

Reviewed by eLife

X-chromosome target specificity diverged between dosage compensation mechanisms of two closely related Caenorhabditis species

1. Qiming Yang
2. Te-Wen Lo
3. Katjuša Brejc
4. Caitlin Schartner
5. Edward J Ralston
6. Denise M Lapidus
7. Barbara J Meyer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study uses state-of-the-art methods to explore the evolution of dosage compensation between two closely related nematode species. The evidence supporting the rapid evolution of the recognition motifs on the X chromosome, despite a general conservation of the mechanism, is compelling. Provided the discussion on the evolutionary aspect of the findings is improved, this work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and evolutionary biologists.

Reviewed by eLife

A concerted mechanism involving ACAT and SREBPs by which oxysterols deplete accessible cholesterol to restrict microbial infection

1. David B Heisler
2. Kristen A Johnson
3. Duo H Ma
4. Maikke B Ohlson
5. Lishu Zhang
6. Michelle Tran
7. Chase D Corley
8. Michael E Abrams
9. Jeffrey G McDonald
10. John W Schoggins
11. Neal M Alto
12. Arun Radhakrishnan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This work provides valuable new insights into the mechanisms by which 25-hydroxycholesterol (which is known to be rapidly produced in macrophages and other cells during acute infections) acts to protect cells and animals from microbial infection. The authors provide compelling evidence that the cholesterol-esterifying enzyme acylCoA:cholesterol acyltransferase (ACAT) that is induced by 25-hydroxycholesterol promotes the depletion of an accessible pool of plasma membrane cholesterol, producing anti-microbial effects.

Reviewed by eLife

Differential chondrogenic differentiation between iPSC derived from healthy and OA cartilage is associated with changes in epigenetic regulation and metabolic transcriptomic signatures

1. Nazir M Khan
2. Martha Elena Diaz-Hernandez
3. Samir Chihab
4. Priyanka Priyadarshani
5. Pallavi Bhattaram
6. Luke J Mortensen
7. Rosa M Guzzo
8. Hicham Drissi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study highlights a significant concept whereby a retained memory of disease during stem cell reprogramming (likely via epigenetic modifications) affects the chondrogenic differentiation potential of osteoarthritis (OA)-iMSCs. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with rigorous RNAseq analysis of genes and signaling pathways. The relevance of this research is highlighted by the valuable role of iPSCs as a potential cell source for regenerative medicine. The work will be of broad interest to skeletal stem cell biologists working on osteoarthritis and cartilage regeneration.

Reviewed by eLife

Pleiotropic effects of BAFF on the senescence-associated secretome and growth arrest

1. Martina Rossi
2. Carlos Anerillas
3. Maria Laura Idda
4. Rachel Munk
5. Chang Hoon Shin
6. Stefano Donega
7. Dimitrios Tsitsipatis
8. Allison B Herman
9. Jennifer L Martindale
10. Xiaoling Yang
11. Yulan Piao
12. Krystyna Mazan-Mamczarz
13. Jinshui Fan
14. Luigi Ferrucci
15. Peter F Johnson
16. Supriyo De
17. Kotb Abdelmohsen
18. Myriam Gorospe

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Rossi et al. carry out a valuable characterization of the molecular circuitry connecting the immunomodulatory cytokine BAFF (B-cell activating factor) in the context of cellular senescence. They present solid evidence that BAFF is upregulated in response to senescence, and that this upregulation is partially driven by the immune response-regulating transcription factor (TF) IRF1, with potential cell type-specific effects during senescence. Ultimately, these results strongly suggest that BAFF plays a senomorphic role in senescence, modulating downstream senescence-associated phenotypes, and may be an interesting candidate for senomorphic therapy.

Reviewed by eLife

Spatially resolved transcriptomics reveals pro-inflammatory fibroblast involved in lymphocyte recruitment through CXCL8 and CXCL10

1. Ana J Caetano
2. Yushi Redhead
3. Farah Karim
4. Pawan Dhami
5. Shichina Kannambath
6. Rosamond Nuamah
7. Ana A Volponi
8. Luigi Nibali
9. Veronica Booth
10. Eleanor M D'Agostino
11. Paul T Sharpe

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The findings of this article provide valuable information on the spatial dynamics of the human oral mucosa in chronic inflammatory disease. The strength of evidence presented is solid and should yield a better understanding of common mucosal diseases in humans.

Reviewed by eLife

Growth cone advance requires EB1 as revealed by genomic replacement with a light-sensitive variant

1. Alessandro Dema
2. Rabab Charafeddine
3. Shima Rahgozar
4. Jeffrey van Haren
5. Torsten Wittmann

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In their manuscript, Dema et al. showcase an important tool to study the role of the microtubule end-binding protein, EB1. This important study is the first to locally inactivate EB1 in human neurons, and while the authors have previously published the effects of replacing endogenous EB1 with a light-sensitive variant, the novelty in this current study is that they use a one-step gene editing replacement method in addition to using human neurons derived from iPSCs. The data is of high quality and the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although including more controls are needed to strengthen the study. The findings of this work will be of interest to cell biologists and neurobiologists, while the methods utilized will have an even broader general interest.

Reviewed by eLife