Physiology

The mechanism underlying transient weakness in myotonia congenita

1. Jessica H Myers
2. Kirsten Denman
3. Chris DuPont
4. Ahmed A Hawash
5. Kevin R Novak
6. Andrew Koesters
7. Manfred Grabner
8. Anamika Dayal
9. Andrew A Voss
10. Mark M Rich

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Patients with myotonia congenita (or Becker disease) experience episodes of transient muscle weakness but the reasons underlying this phenomenon are unknown. This study provides the most definitive experimental evidence to date for the mechanistic basis of transient weakness in myotonia congenita and also suggests ranolazine may be beneficial for prophylactic management.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewers #1, #2, and #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Early maternal loss leads to short- but not long-term effects on diurnal cortisol slopes in wild chimpanzees

1. Cédric Girard-Buttoz
2. Patrick J Tkaczynski
3. Liran Samuni
4. Pawel Fedurek
5. Cristina Gomes
6. Therese Löhrich
7. Virgile Manin
8. Anna Preis
9. Prince F Valé
10. Tobias Deschner
11. Roman M Wittig
12. Catherine Crockford

• Curated by eLife

  Summary: This paper tests the biological embedding model by asking whether and how early maternal loss affects cortisol levels and diurnal cortisol slopes among wild chimpanzees at the Tai Forest, Côte d'Ivoire. The results suggest that maternal loss alters the HPA stress axis in wild chimpanzees, but these effects are not visible later in life. Authors suggest that the lack of a later life association between maternal loss and cortisol levels may be due to selective early mortality of individuals with high cortisol levels but did not provide any survival or behavioural data to show that orphans and non-orphans differ in any fitness-related traits other than cortisol. Furthermore, the association between cortisol and the HPA axis is in the opposite direction to that observed in humans and there seems to be no significant increase in cortisol in orphans compared to non-orphans. Overall, the study is the result of extensive fieldwork, the number of samples collected is impressive and the subject is very interesting.

  The analyses will benefit greatly if the authors use effect sizes and confidence intervals for inferences instead of p-values. This may solve the significance threshold issues. Moreover, the reliance on p-values seem to limit the value of the data. For example, authors suggest that results from model 1 should be treated with caution because the full model is not significantly different from the null model, but by relying on it as the key finding of the study without exploring effect sizes, it does not seem that they did exercise sufficient caution.

Reviewed by eLife

Asprosin Neutralizing Antibodies as a Treatment for Metabolic Syndrome

1. Ila Mishra
2. Clemens Duerrschmid
3. Zhiqiang Ku
4. Wei Xie
5. Elizabeth Sabath Silva
6. Jennifer Hoffmann
7. Wei Xin
8. Ningyan Zhang
9. Zhiqiang An
10. Atul R. Chopra

• Curated by eLife

  Summary: Mishra et al. present data characterizing the effect of asprosin neutralizing antibodies on the parameters of metabolic syndrome (weight, glucose, lipids, etc). This group were the initial discoverers and characterized asprosin as a hormone that increases blood sugar and stimulates appetite. In their Nature Medicine 2017 article they also present data on a neutralizing antibody. In this follow-up manuscript the group characterizes the impact of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies on metabolic parameters of three mouse models of obesity (DIO, NASH diet and Leptin receptor knockout). The translational focus of the manuscript is potential use of monoclonal antibodies against aprosin as a treatment of metabolic syndrome.

Reviewed by eLife

Health benefits attributed to 17α-estradiol, a lifespan-extending compound, are mediated through estrogen receptor α

1. Shivani N Mann
2. Niran Hadad
3. Molly Nelson Holte
4. Alicia R Rothman
5. Roshini Sathiaseelan
6. Samim Ali Mondal
7. Martin-Paul Agbaga
8. Archana Unnikrishnan
9. Malayannan Subramaniam
10. John Hawse
11. Derek M Huffman
12. Willard M Freeman
13. Michael B Stout

Reviewed by eLife

Enhanced C/EBPβ function promotes hyperplastic versus hypertrophic fat tissue growth and prevents steatosis in response to high-fat diet feeding

1. Christine Müller
2. Laura M Zidek
3. Sabrina Eichwald
4. Gertrud Kortman
5. Mirjam H Koster
6. Cornelis F Calkhoven

Reviewed by eLife

Effects of Early Life Stress on Bone Homeostasis in Mice and Humans

1. Karin Wuertz-Kozak
2. Martin Roszkowski
3. Elena Cambria
4. Andrea Block
5. Gisela A. Kuhn
6. Thea Abele
7. Wolfgang Hitzl
8. David Drießlein
9. Ralph Müller
10. Michael A. Rapp
11. Isabelle M. Mansuy
12. Eva M. J. Peters
13. Pia M. Wippert

Reviewed by eLife

Vanishing white matter disease expression of truncated EIF2B5 activates induced stress response

1. Matthew D Keefe
2. Haille E Soderholm
3. Hung-Yu Shih
4. Tamara J Stevenson
5. Kathryn A Glaittli
6. D Miranda Bowles
7. Erika Scholl
8. Samuel Colby
9. Samer Merchant
10. Edward W Hsu
11. Joshua L Bonkowsky

Reviewed by eLife

Low-protein/high-carbohydrate diet induces AMPK-dependent canonical and non-canonical thermogenesis in subcutaneous adipose tissue

1. Katia Aquilano
2. Francesca Sciarretta
3. Riccardo Turchi
4. Bo-Han Li
5. Marco Rosina
6. Veronica Ceci
7. Giulio Guidobaldi
8. Simona Arena
9. Chiara D'Ambrosio
10. Matteo Audano
11. Illari Salvatori
12. Barbara Colella
13. Raffaella Faraonio
14. Concita Panebianco
15. Valerio Pazienza
16. Donatella Caruso
17. Nico Mitro
18. Sabrina Di Bartolomeo
19. Andrea Scaloni
20. Jing-Ya Li
21. Daniele Lettieri-Barbato

Reviewed by Review Commons

Protective role of neuronal and lymphoid cannabinoid CB2 receptors in neuropathic pain

1. David Cabañero
2. Angela Ramírez-López
3. Eva Drews
4. Anne Schmöle
5. David M Otte
6. Agnieszka Wawrzczak-Bargiela
7. Hector Huerga Encabo
8. Sami Kummer
9. Antonio Ferrer-Montiel
10. Ryszard Przewlocki
11. Andreas Zimmer
12. Rafael Maldonado

Reviewed by eLife

Cancer causes dysfunctional insulin signaling and glucose transport in a muscle‐type‐specific manner

1. Steffen H. Raun
2. Jonas Roland Knudsen
3. Xiuqing Han
4. Thomas E. Jensen
5. Lykke Sylow

Reviewed by PREreview