Cell Biology

The ER tether VAPA is required for proper cell motility and anchors ER-PM contact sites to focal adhesions

1. Hugo Siegfried
2. Georges Farkouh
3. Rémi Le Borgne
4. Catherine Pioche-Durieu
5. Thaïs De Azevedo Laplace
6. Agathe Verraes
7. Lucien Daunas
8. Jean-Marc Verbavatz
9. Mélina L Heuzé

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript presents valuable findings that bring together two important topics in cell biology: the function of membrane contact sites and cell migration. The authors describe a role of the ER tether protein VAP-A in focal adhesion dynamics and cell motility. Although the authors present solid evidence to support some of the main claims of the paper, some of the other claims would benefit from stronger experimental support. Nonetheless, this paper will be of interest to those cell biologists and biophysicists working on adhesion, migration, and membrane contact site biology.

Reviewed by eLife

Bone marrow Adipoq-lineage progenitors are a major cellular source of M-CSF that dominates bone marrow macrophage development, osteoclastogenesis, and bone mass

1. Kazuki Inoue
2. Yongli Qin
3. Yuhan Xia
4. Jie Han
5. Ruoxi Yuan
6. Jun Sun
7. Ren Xu
8. Jean X Jiang
9. Matthew B Greenblatt
10. Baohong Zhao

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper is of interest for skeletal biologists studying bone marrow stem/progenitor cells and bone remodeling. Using Adipoq-Cre-driven conditional deletion of Csf1 that encodes M-CSF and reanalyzing publicly available scRNAseq data, the authors recognize a subpopulation of bone marrow cells (i.e. AdipoQ-lineage progenitors) as an important source of M-CSF. The authors found that M-CSF production from these bone marrow cells influences the development of macrophages and osteoclasts as well as bone mass, including the bone loss associated with estrogen deficiency. This is a clearly written and nicely presented study that has potential to offer important new information regarding the source of M-CSF in the bone marrow.

Reviewed by eLife

Systematic analysis of microtubule plus-end networks defines EB-cargo complexes critical for mitosis in budding yeast

1. Nikolay Kornakov
2. Stefan Westermann

Reviewed by Review Commons

Opto-RhoGEFs, an optimized optogenetic toolbox to reversibly control Rho GTPase activity on a global to subcellular scale, enabling precise control over vascular endothelial barrier strength

1. Eike K Mahlandt
2. Sebastián Palacios Martínez
3. Janine JG Arts
4. Simon Tol
5. Jaap D van Buul
6. Joachim Goedhart

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper presents a valuable advance in the ability to manipulate the integrity of the barrier between endothelial cells. A wide range of data are presented, offering convincing support for the effectiveness of the method. This work is likely to attract a diverse audience of both cell biologists and researchers developing tools to manipulate cell and tissue function.

Reviewed by eLife

Activity regulates a cell type-specific mitochondrial phenotype in zebrafish lateral line hair cells

1. Andrea McQuate
2. Sharmon Knecht
3. David W Raible

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Mutations in mitochondrial genes can lead to deafness but the mitochondrial biology of sensory hair cells is not well understood. In this study, high-resolution imaging of mitochondrial development in sensory hair cells of normal and mutant zebrafish lateral line systems was described. The authors provide evidence that the formation of the mitochondrial architecture requires normal hair cell activity. This paper is of potential interest to researchers interested in metabolic homeostasis and sensory hair cell biology.

Reviewed by eLife

Cryo-plasma FIB/SEM volume imaging of biological specimens

1. Maud Dumoux
2. Thomas Glen
3. Jake LR Smith
4. Elaine ML Ho
5. Luis MA Perdigão
6. Avery Pennington
7. Sven Klumpe
8. Neville BY Yee
9. David Andrew Farmer
10. Pui YA Lai
11. William Bowles
12. Ron Kelley
13. Jürgen M Plitzko
14. Liang Wu
15. Mark Basham
16. Daniel K Clare
17. C Alistair Siebert
18. Michele C Darrow
19. James H Naismith
20. Michael Grange

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work presented is of interest to the electron microscopy community, which expanding to more and more cell biologists. The field has long searched for a suitable method to combine the pristine preservation of vitrified samples with a volumetric imaging modality that reveals subcellular architecture at sufficient contrast for ultrastructural analyses, and the authors describe here the use of novel ion beams for imaging cellular samples in three dimensions, concluding that one of the four plasma sources tested produces the highest quality images. This allows them to provide several recommendations for imaging along with software for improving collected images. This approach should be very useful for addressing many biological questions.

Reviewed by eLife

Centriolar satellites expedite mother centriole remodeling to promote ciliogenesis

1. Emma A Hall
2. Dhivya Kumar
3. Suzanna L Prosser
4. Patricia L Yeyati
5. Vicente Herranz-Pérez
6. Jose Manuel García-Verdugo
7. Lorraine Rose
8. Lisa McKie
9. Daniel O Dodd
10. Peter A Tennant
11. Roly Megaw
12. Laura C Murphy
13. Marisa F Ferreira
14. Graeme Grimes
15. Lucy Williams
16. Tooba Quidwai
17. Laurence Pelletier
18. Jeremy F Reiter
19. Pleasantine Mill

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript will be of interest to centrosome and cilia cell biologists. It evaluates the in vivo and in vitro role of PCM1, and by extension, centriole satellites in ciliogenesis. The major strength of this study is the detailed characterisation of Pcm1-/- mutant mice, which reveals a role for PCM1 in biogenesis of specific types of cilia, such as motile cilia on ependymal cells. The claims are generally well supported by the data, but the mechanistic basis for the cell-type specific requirement for PCM1 in ciliogenesis remains to be fully clarified.

Reviewed by eLife

HUWE1 controls tristetraprolin proteasomal degradation by regulating its phosphorylation

1. Sara Scinicariello
2. Adrian Soderholm
3. Markus Schäfer
4. Alexandra Shulkina
5. Irene Schwartz
6. Kathrin Hacker
7. Rebeca Gogova
8. Robert Kalis
9. Kimon Froussios
10. Valentina Budroni
11. Annika Bestehorn
12. Tim Clausen
13. Pavel Kovarik
14. Johannes Zuber
15. Gijs A Versteeg

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The RNA-binding protein Tristetraprolin (TPP) regulates the abundance of mRNAs encoding proinflammatory cytokines. The study by Scinicariello and collaborators examined mechanisms regulating the turnover of TTP in cultured cells and identified the ubiquitin E3 ligase HUWE1 as a regulator of TPP degradation. The conclusions are largely supported by the cellular and biochemical experiments. This paper thus implicates the HUWE1-TPP axis in regulating macrophage inflammatory responses at the post-transcriptional steps.

Reviewed by eLife

Syncytin-mediated open-ended membrane tubular connections facilitate the intercellular transfer of cargos including Cas9 protein

1. Congyan Zhang
2. Randy Schekman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This convincing demonstration of intercellular transfer of material and its subsequent function in the acceptor cell lends important evidence for the membrane tubular systems' role in cell communication. Importantly a fusogenic protein, syncytin, is shown to play a role in providing an open connection between the cytoplasms of both the acceptor and donor cells. The work has implications for how cells can influence each other's functions.

Reviewed by eLife

Ciliary tip actin dynamics regulate photoreceptor outer segment integrity

1. Roly Megaw
2. Abigail Moye
3. Zhixian Zhang
4. Fay Newton
5. Fraser McPhie
6. Laura C. Murphy
7. Lisa McKie
8. Feng He
9. Melissa K. Jungnickel
10. Alex von Kriegsheim
11. Peter A. Tennant
12. Chloe Brotherton
13. Christine Gurniak
14. Alecia K. Gross
15. Laura M. Machesky
16. Theodore G. Wensel
17. Pleasantine Mill

Reviewed by Life Science Editors