eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The Dual Molecular Identity of Vestibular Kinocilia: Bridging Structural and Functional Traits of Primary and Motile Cilia

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Zhenhang Xu
   2. Amirrasoul Tavakoli
   3. Samadhi Kulasooriya
   4. Huizhan Liu
   5. Shu Tu
   6. Celia Bloom
   7. Yi Li
   8. Tirone D. Johnson
   9. Jian Zuo
   10. Litao Tao
   11. Bechara Kachar
   12. David Z. He

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Using single-cell transcriptomic data from adult mouse inner ear hair cells, the authors identify the differences and similarities of the four hair cell types. They make an important finding: that vestibular hair cells can express many ciliary motility-related genes. Some hair cell kinocilia display motility, suggesting that the kinocilium of vestibular hair cells may function as an active force generator to increase sensitivity. The evidence is incomplete as to whether all kinocilia beat and what the function of kinocilia movement is.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. The vaccine candidate Liver Stage Antigen 3 is exported during Plasmodium falciparum infection and required for liver-stage development

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Robyn McConville
   2. Ryan W.J. Steel
   3. Matthew T. O’Neill
   4. Alan F. Cowman
   5. Norman Kneteman
   6. Justin A. Boddey

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study provides new insights into the liver stage antigen LSA3, its export to erythrocytes, and its role in liver stage development. While the functional importance of LSA3 is well-demonstrated, the data underlying conclusions about antibody specificity, liver stage localization, and phenotype remain incomplete. A key gain is the use of mosquito and humanized mouse models to access life cycle stages rarely studied in most laboratories.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. BetaII-Spectrin Gaps and Patches Emerge from the Patterned Assembly of the Actin/Spectrin Membrane Skeleton in Human Motor Neuron Axons

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Nahir Guadalupe Gazal
   2. Maria Jose Castellanos-Montiel
   3. Guillermina Bruno
   4. Anna Kristina Franco-Flores
   5. Sarah Lépine
   6. Lale Gursu
   7. Ghazal Haghi
   8. Gilles Maussion
   9. Agustín Anastasía
   10. Mariano Bisbal
   11. Ezequiel Axel Gorostiza
   12. Thomas M. Durcan
   13. Nicolás Unsain

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study characterizes the emergence of the membrane-associated periodic cytoskeleton (MPS) in the axons of human motor neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Super-resolution imaging of beta-II spectrin provides convincing evidence for the patterned assembly of spectrin-poor gaps and spectrin-rich MPS in the medial region of the axons and its enhancement by the kinase inhibitor staurosporine. The data advocates against gap formation by cytoskeleton disassembly in a continuous MPS. Instead, a continuous MPS may result from nascent MPS patches and their maturation, a model that would benefit from live imaging for validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Identifying the genetic basis and molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic correlation between complex human traits using a gene-based approach

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Jialiang Gu
   2. Chris Fuller
   3. Peter Carbonetto
   4. Xin He
   5. Jiashun Zheng
   6. Hao Li

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study characterizes the emergence of the membrane-associated periodic cytoskeleton (MPS) in the axons of human motor neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Super-resolution imaging of beta-II spectrin provides convincing evidence for the patterned assembly of spectrin-poor gaps and spectrin-rich MPS in the medial region of the axons and its enhancement by the kinase inhibitor staurosporine. The data advocates against gap formation by cytoskeleton disassembly in a continuous MPS. Instead, a continuous MPS may result from nascent MPS patches and their maturation, a model that would benefit from live imaging for validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Restoring data balance via generative models of T cell receptors for antigen-binding prediction

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Emanuele Loffredo
   2. Mauro Pastore
   3. Simona Cocco
   4. Rémi Monasson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study introduces a data augmentation approach based on generative unsupervised models to address data imbalance in immune receptor modeling. Support for the findings is solid, showing that the use of generated data increases the performance of downstream supervised prediction tasks, e.g., TCR-peptide interaction prediction. However, the validation, mainly relying on synthetic data, could be completed, especially regarding unseen epitopes, and given the exclusive focus on CDR3β. The results should be of interest to the communities working on immunology and biological sequence data analysis.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Orderly mitosis shapes interphase genome architecture

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Krishnendu Guin
   2. Adib Keikhosravi
   3. Raj Chari
   4. Gianluca Pegoraro
   5. Tom Misteli

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study combines microscopy and CRISPR screening in two different cell lines to identify factors involved in global chromatin organization, using centromere clustering as a proxy. Follow-up cell cycle synchronisation studies confirm roles in centromere clustering in mitosis. However, incomplete characterisation of the cell lines used limits the interpretation of the findings. The study will interest researchers studying genome organisation in mitosis.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Distinct evolutionary trajectories of two integration centres, the central complex and mushroom bodies, across Heliconiini butterflies

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Max S Farnworth
   2. Yi Peng Toh
   3. Theodora Loupasaki
   4. Elizabeth A Hodge
   5. Basil el Jundi
   6. Stephen H Montgomery

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The analysis of neural morphology across Heliconiini butterfly species revealed brain area-specific changes associated with new foraging behaviours. While the volume of the centre for learning and memory, the mushroom bodies, was known to vary widely across species, new, valuable results show conservation of the volume of a center for navigation, the central complex. The presented evidence is convincing for both volumetric conservation in the central complex and fine neuroanatomical differences associated with pollen feeding, delivered by experimental approaches that are applicable to other insect species. This work will be of interest to evolutionary biologists, entomologists, and neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Transport kinetics across interfaces between coexisting liquid phases

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Lars Hubatsch
   2. Stefano Bo
   3. Tyler S Harmon
   4. Anthony A Hyman
   5. Christoph A Weber
   6. Frank Jülicher

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers a valuable theoretical framework for quantifying molecular transport across interfaces between coexisting liquid phases, emphasizing interfacial resistance as a central factor governing transport kinetics. The mathematical derivations are solid. To enhance the paper's relevance and broaden its appeal, it would be helpful to clarify how the key equations connect to existing literature and to elucidate the physical mechanisms underlying scenarios that give rise to substantial interfacial resistance.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Multimodal MRI Marker of Cognition Explains the Association Between Cognition and Mental Health in UK Biobank

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Irina Buianova
   2. Mateus Silvestrin
   3. Jeremiah Deng
   4. Narun Pat

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable work advances our understanding of the relation between multimodal MRI, cognition, and mental health. Convincing use of statistical learning techniques in UK Biobank data shows that 48% of the variance between an 11-task derived g-factor and imaging data can be explained. Overall, this paper contributes to the study of brain-behaviour relations and will be of interest for both its methods and its findings on how much variance in g can be explained.

     [Editorial note: a previous version was reviewed by Biological Psychiatry]

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Protein phase change batteries drive innate immune signaling and cell fate

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Alejandro Rodriguez Gama
    2. Tayla Miller
    3. Shriram Venkatesan
    4. Jeffrey J Lange
    5. Jianzheng Wu
    6. Xiaoqing Song
    7. Dan Bradford
    8. Malcolm Cook
    9. Jay R Unruh
    10. Randal Halfmann

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study investigates the self-assembly activity of death-fold domains. The data collected using advanced microscopy and distributed amphifluoric FRET-based flow cytometry methods provide solid evidence for the conclusions, although the interpretations based on these conclusions remain speculative in some cases. This paper is broad interest to those studying a variety of biological pathways involved in inflammatory responses and various forms of cell death.

    Reviewed by eLife