Molecular Biology

From silence to song: Testosterone triggers extensive transcriptional changes in the female canary HVC

1. Meng-Ching Ko
2. Carolina Frankl-Vilches
3. Antje Bakker
4. Nina Sohnius-Wilhelmi
5. Pepe Alcami
6. Manfred Gahr

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper is of interest to neuroscientists studying the effects of sex hormones on neural and behavioral plasticity, and more specifically to researchers studying the neural mechanisms underlying birdsong plasticity. The experimental design is excellent, and the work provides a comprehensive resource for understanding the intersection between testosterone's influence on gene expression and behavior. However, the work also makes claims concerning cellular effects and gene regulatory mechanisms that extend beyond the data and under the current analyses are not rigorously supported.

Reviewed by eLife

Control of telomere length in yeast by SUMOylated PCNA and the Elg1 PCNA unloader

1. Pragyan Singh
2. Inbal Gazy
3. Martin Kupiec

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study aims to discover the mechanisms governing the switch between conventional DNA replication and the specialized mechanism of telomere end replication. Solid genetic and biochemical assays suggest an interplay between sumoylated PCNA and chromosome terminal capping proteins. The questions addressed have implications for several fields, such as genome stability.

Reviewed by eLife

APE1 recruits ATRIP to ssDNA in an RPA-dependent and -independent manner to promote the ATR DNA damage response

1. Yunfeng Lin
2. Jia Li
3. Haichao Zhao
4. Anne McMahon
5. Kelly McGhee
6. Shan Yan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway, single-stranded DNAs (ssDNAs) activate a downstream kinase cascade with ATR/Chk1. Replication protein A (RPA) is believed to be essential for DDR activation by recruiting an ATR-partner protein, ATRIP, to RPA-coated ssDNAs through direct protein-protein interaction. This important paper provides convincing results, showing that an AP endonuclease, APE1 (APEX1), plays a role not only in RPA-dependent but also in RPA-independent recruitment of ATRIP on ssDNAs for DDR activation.

Reviewed by eLife

Bidirectional regulation of postmitotic H3K27me3 distributions underlie cerebellar granule neuron maturation dynamics

1. Vijyendra Ramesh
2. Fang Liu
3. Melyssa S Minto
4. Urann Chan
5. Anne E West

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents a useful inventory of chromatin modifications and genes that are up- and down-regulated during cerebellar development in vivo and in primary culture. The main claims were incomplete and would benefit from further analysis and/or additional experiments. The work will be of interest to biologists working on brain development.

Reviewed by eLife

The role of aneuploidy and polyclonality in the adaptation of the Protozoan parasite Leishmania to high drug pressure

1. Gabriel H. Negreira
2. Robin de Groote
3. Dorien Van Giel
4. Pieter Monsieurs
5. Ilse Maes
6. Geraldine de Muylder
7. Frederik Van den Broeck
8. Jean-Claude Dujardin
9. Malgorzata A. Domagalska

Reviewed by Review Commons

Stimulation of the catalytic activity of the tyrosine kinase Btk by the adaptor protein Grb2

1. Laura M Nocka
2. Timothy J Eisen
3. Anthony T Iavarone
4. Jay T Groves
5. John Kuriyan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors' finding that Btk kinase activation relies on specific interactions with the Grb2 scaffold protein, including for recruitment into signaling clusters on membranes, is an unexpected finding that will potentially be of broad interest. The authors make a case for reinterpretation of the "Saraste dimer" of Btk as a signaling entity and assign roles to the component domains in the Src module in Btk activation, but the data provided are not yet fully convincing for this scenario.

Reviewed by eLife

PRMT5 links lipid metabolism to contractile function of skeletal muscles

1. Kun Ho Kim
2. Zhihao Jia
3. Madigan Snyder
4. Jingjuan Chen
5. Jiamin Qiu
6. Stephanie N Oprescu
7. Xiyue Chen
8. Sabriya A Syed
9. Feng Yue
10. Bruno T Roseguini
11. Anthony N Imbalzano
12. Changdeng Hu
13. Shihuan Kuang

Reviewed by Review Commons

Isoforms of the TAL1 transcription factor have different roles in hematopoiesis and cell growth

1. Aveksha Sharma
2. Shani Mistriel-Zerbib
3. Rauf Ahmad Najar
4. Eden Engal
5. Mercedes Bentata
6. Nadeen Taqatqa
7. Sara Dahan
8. Klil Cohen
9. Shiri Jaffe-Herman
10. Ophir Geminder
11. Mai Baker
12. Yuval Nevo
13. Inbar Plaschkes
14. Gillian Kay
15. Yotam Drier
16. Michael Berger
17. Maayan Salton

Reviewed by Review Commons

Ablation of palladin in adult heart causes dilated cardiomyopathy associated with intercalated disc abnormalities

1. Giuseppina Mastrototaro
2. Pierluigi Carullo
3. Jianlin Zhang
4. Beatrice Scellini
5. Nicoletta Piroddi
6. Simona Nemska
7. Maria Carmela Filomena
8. Simone Serio
9. Carol A Otey
10. Chiara Tesi
11. Fabian Emrich
12. Wolfgang A Linke
13. Corrado Poggesi
14. Simona Boncompagni
15. Marie-Louise Bang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript will be of interest to scientists who study cardiomyocyte homeostasis and contraction. It assesses the functional consequences of cardiomyocyte-specific knockout of Palladin, leading to the identification of a compensation mechanism when Palladin is deleted in embryogenesis, but not in adulthood. In addition, the authors identified new Palladin interactors, revealing a role for Palladin in the maintenance of intercalated disc structure.

Reviewed by eLife

Gene editing and scalable functional genomic screening in Leishmania species using the CRISPR/Cas9 cytosine base editor toolbox LeishBASEedit

1. Markus Engstler
2. Tom Beneke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Only few species of Leishmania, an important human pathogen, have an RNAi machinery, alternative methods are needed for genetic screens. The authors resent and validate a valuable method, based on the introduction of premature stop codons, that can be used for several different species. The results are very convincing, the data are solid, and the approach will be of interest to researchers studying any eukaryote that lacks the RNAi machinery.

Reviewed by eLife