eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. A Sequential Assembly Mechanism for Stable Cdc13 Dimerization on Telomeric DNA

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Po-Wei Chiu
   2. Yu-Ting Lin
   3. Pei-Ru Lai
   4. Tzu-Yu Lee
   5. Yu-Chen Cheng
   6. Yan-Zhu Hsieh
   7. Hung-Wen Li
   8. Jing-Jer Lin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study uses biochemical and single-molecule approaches to characterize how yeast Cdc13 assembles on single-stranded telomeric DNA and contributes to telomere protection. The evidence supporting the proposed model for Cdc13 assembly and its role at telomeres is solid. The findings provide insight into how Cdc13 contributes to the maintenance and protection of chromosome ends. This work will be of interest to researchers in telomere biology, DNA replication, biochemistry, and single-molecule biophysics.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Non-invasive measurement of neurotransmitter-specific glucose metabolism in the human brain using proton-observed proton-edited 13C-MRS (POPE13C-MRS)

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Antoine Cherix
   2. Oliver Haermson
   3. Mohamed Tachrount
   4. Jon Campbell
   5. William T Clarke
   6. Jason P Lerch
   7. Charlotte Stagg

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable proof-of-concept study tests and validates a novel magnetic resonance-based method - proton-observed proton-edited MRS - for tracking glucose metabolism in the brain beyond simple substrate uptake, without the need for specialist hardware typically restricted to research settings. The approach offers a promising way to assess excitation/inhibition balance by detecting labelled glucose metabolites. The pre-clinical data in mouse models provide convincing support for the authors' hypothesis. The evidence in the human brain is incomplete: the results would require further optimisation of the experimental set-up and validation in a larger group of volunteers. This work will be of broad interest to researchers studying psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, and related brain disorders.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Dissociation between impaired explicit spatial remapping and preserved implicit neural dynamics in Alzheimer’s disease

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Xueling Wang
   2. Yimeng Wang
   3. Keliang Pang
   4. Chenguang Zheng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     There is a significant need for improved understanding of the neural circuit mechanisms for learning and memory dysfunction in Alzheimers disease. In this valuable study, Zheng and colleagues compare neural coding between wild-type and App knock-in rats experiencing different contexts. Solid evidence of a difference emerges when "spatial" and "temporal" neural coding dynamics are considered separately. However, the lack of a link between neural coding and behaviorally measured learning, and minor issues with the analyses, are limiting factors of the evidence and the significance of the work.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Distal conformational steering by N-terminal pyroglutamylation enables subtype-selective GPCR activation across Aplysia PRXamide and human Neuromedin U signaling

   This article has 19 authors:

   1. Jian-Hui Chang
   2. Wei-Jia Liu
   3. Shao-Qian Wu
   4. Elena V Romanova
   5. Cheng-Yi Liu
   6. Cui-Ping Liu
   7. Xing Pan
   8. Fan Li
   9. Xue-Ying Ding
   10. Rui-Ting Mao
   11. Hui-Ying Wang
   12. Ju-Ping Xu
   13. Ping Fu
   14. Yi-Long Zhang
   15. Qing-Chun Jin
   16. Yan-Chu-Fei Zhang
   17. Guo Zhang
   18. Jonathan V Sweedler
   19. Jian Jing

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study demonstrates that pyroglutamylation of peptide ligands alters G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation in a subtype-specific manner and proposes a novel mechanism whereby the posttranslational modification steers the distal conformation of the peptide within the orthosteric binding site. The strength of the evidence supporting receptor-specific functional effects is convincing, but the strength of the evidence supporting the proposed structural mechanism is incomplete. This study will be of interest to pharmacologists and cell biologists interested in posttranslational modifications (PTMs) and activation mechanisms of GPCRs.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Longitudinal Central Adiposity Accumulation is Associated with Cortical Alteration and Impaired Cognitive Function in Adolescents

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Lingxuan Zhang
   2. Bowen Qiu
   3. Zhifan Chen
   4. Xinyi Xu
   5. Ruoke Zhao
   6. Yiwei Chen
   7. Chenglin Ning
   8. Ruike Chen
   9. Mingyang Li
   10. Dan Wang
   11. Junfen Fu
   12. Dan Wu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important paper studies how adiposity affects brain development in the ABCD study. Major findings include: (1) central adiposity indices (BRI, WHtR) show stronger cross-sectional associations with cognition than BMI, partially mediated by frontotemporal cortical morphology; (2) the rate of adiposity accrual, rather than static adiposity at either timepoint, predicts follow-up cognition and altered (attenuated) cortical thinning; and (3) among overweight/obese adolescents, central fat reduction is accompanied by accelerated cortical thinning and catch-up in inhibitory control. The strength of evidence is solid, with the main limitation related to only looking at the cerebral cortex rather than examining the whole brain. The subgroup observation that fat reduction may be accompanied by normalization of both cortical trajectories and inhibitory control is potentially clinically meaningful, suggesting reversibility rather than fixed deficit, and would be of broad interest if it withstands more rigorous analysis.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. HAX1 drives assembly and activation of the mitochondrial intermembrane space chaperone CLPB

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Monifa AV Fahie
   2. Julia G Hoffman
   3. Mimi S Kay
   4. Julia R Kardon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This in vitro study provides important evidence that the mitochondrial intermembrane space protein HAX1 functions as a direct activating cofactor of the AAA+ chaperone CLPB, resolving a longstanding question arising from the strong genetic, proteomic, and disease associations between these proteins. The convincing work advances our understanding of mitochondrial proteostasis by demonstrating that HAX1 promotes CLPB oligomerization and will potentially even enable the generation of small molecules that mimic the function of HAX1 in CLPB activation. The study will be of general interest to biochemists working on chaperones and/or mitochondrial biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Primary cilia in the growing limb are preferentially orientated, uncoupled from centriolar position

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Theana Johnson
   2. Swati Midha
   3. Amelie M Julé
   4. Gabriella Randall
   5. Katerina Apolinova
   6. Jadwiga Miotla-Zarebska
   7. Stephen N Sansom
   8. Tonia L Vincent
   9. Angus KT Wann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study provides a detailed three-dimensional characterization of primary cilia organization in the postnatal mouse growth plate, revealing reproducible spatial patterns in ciliation, ciliary length, and orientation. The evidence supporting these descriptive findings is solid, based on high-quality quantitative imaging and complementary genetic, mechanical, and transcriptomic approaches. However, evidence for the broader mechanistic conclusions is incomplete, particularly regarding whether ciliary orientation is uncoupled from basal-body and cell orientation and whether its stability under altered mechanical loading reflects a cell-intrinsic program. The study provides a helpful foundation for understanding primary cilia organization and mechanobiology in the growing skeleton, while the mechanisms underlying these observations remain to be established.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The petal identity gene PhDEF has a major binding and regulatory action in the epidermis

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Emma Désert
   2. Quentin Cavallini-Speisser
   3. Evelyne Duvernois-Berthet
   4. Pierre Chambrier
   5. Patrice Morel
   6. Brice Letcher
   7. Carine Rey
   8. Jeremy Just
   9. Suzanne Rodrigues Bento
   10. Daniel Bouyer
   11. Marie Monniaux

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study investigates the action of a floral homeotic transcription factor in different cell types. The results provide solid evidence that PhDEF shows more extensive binding and regulatory effects in the epidermis than in the mesophyll, supporting the conclusion that cell-layer context influences homeotic gene function. While there are some limitations, they do not undermine the principal observation of layer-dependent PhDEF activity, but the interpretation of the data is complicated by uncertainties in cell-type assignment and composition in the scRNA-seq data, the cell-type-enriched rather than strictly cell-type-specific nature of the ChIP-seq data, and differences in developmental stage between the single-cell and ChIP-seq experiments. The work will be of interest to developmental biologists studying transcriptional regulation and cell identity.

     [Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

   Reviewed by eLife, Review Commons

9. Invariant synaptic density across species

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. André Ferreira Castro
   2. Albert Cardona

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a potentially valuable study in the area of connectomics, comparing across species to obtain a uniform synaptic density of ~1 synapse per micron. While the methods add to the field, the datasets are limited and filtered, and the role of cell-type on spacing is passed over. Additionally, some of the analyses could be tightened; hence, overall, the findings remain incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Reverse engineering of motor unit discharge in multiple sclerosis reveals heterogeneity of voluntary motor commands

    This article has 8 authors:

    1. Laura M McPherson
    2. Keith R Lohse
    3. Skyler M Simon
    4. Daniel B Free
    5. James A Beauchamp
    6. Francesco Negro
    7. Robert T Naismith
    8. Anne H Cross

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study provides a very large data set of motor unit recordings in people with multiple sclerosis and, as such, could impact both foundational and clinical studies of the neuromuscular system. The study reports increased variability in firing rate profiles across participants and suggests that this observation reflects differences in the excitatory, inhibitory, and neuromodulatory drive reaching motor neurons. The descriptive finding is solid, but the link to specific neural mechanisms is incomplete as it depends heavily on assumptions related to its model-based framework.

    Reviewed by eLife