eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Impact of liver-specific survival motor neuron (SMN) depletion on central nervous system and peripheral tissue pathology

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Monique Marylin Alves de Almeida
   2. Yves De Repentigny
   3. Sabrina Gagnon
   4. Emma R Sutton
   5. Rashmi Kothary

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work presents an important mouse model for a liver-specific depletion of the Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) protein, where the liver retains 30% of functional full-length SMN protein. The authors provide a profile of phenotypic changes in liver-specific SMN depleted mice with convincing evidence supporting their claims.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Asynchronous mouse embryo polarization leads to heterogeneity in cell fate specification

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Adiyant Lamba
   2. Meng Zhu
   3. Maciej Meglicki
   4. Sylwia Czukiewska
   5. Lakshmi Balasubramaniam
   6. Ron Hadas
   7. Nina Weishaupt
   8. Ekta M Patel
   9. Yu Hua Kavanagh
   10. Ran Wang
   11. Naihe Jing
   12. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of the molecular basis by which early symmetry breaking events connect to the following cell fate specifications in preimplantation mammalian embryos. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with advanced image based assays and microinjection based functional tests. The work will be of broad interest to cell and developmental biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Glycolytic flux controls retinal progenitor cell differentiation via regulating Wnt signaling

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Joseph Hanna
   2. Yacine Touahri
   3. Alissa Pak
   4. Lauren Belfiore
   5. Edwin van Oosten
   6. Luke Ajay David
   7. Sisu Han
   8. Yaroslav Ilnytskyy
   9. Igor Kovalchuk
   10. Deborah Kurrasch
   11. Satoshi Okawa
   12. Antonio del Sol
   13. Robert A Screaton
   14. Isabelle Aubert
   15. Carol Schuurmans

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study advances our understanding of the role that energy metabolism, specifically anaerobic glycolysis, plays during retinal development. Convincing in vitro genetic and pharmacological evidence demonstrates that glycolytic flux controls retinal progenitor cell proliferation rates and the timing of photoreceptor maturation. Interesting evidence suggests potential downstream roles for intracellular pH and Wnt/β-catenin signaling; however, more direct evidence is needed to show they are the key mechanisms through which glycolytic flux regulates retinogenesis in vivo. This work is expected to stimulate broad interest and possible future studies investigating the link between metabolism and development in other tissue systems.

     [Editors’ note: Primary data for this manuscript are not available due to a corrupted hard drive that occurred during the course of peer review. However, preprocessed data are available.]

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Fat body-derived cytokine Upd2 controls disciplined migration of tracheal stem cells in Drosophila

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Pengzhen Dong
   2. Yue Li
   3. Yuying Wang
   4. Qiang Zhao
   5. Tianfeng Lu
   6. Jian Chen
   7. Tianyu Guo
   8. Jun Ma
   9. Bing Yang
   10. Honggang Wu
   11. Hai Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study investigates how inter-organ communication between the tracheal stem cells and the fat body plays a key role in the directed migration of tracheal stem cells in Drosophila pupae. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing. The work would be of broad interest to researchers in the fields of developmental biology and cancer biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Pharmacologic activation of integrated stress response kinases inhibits pathologic mitochondrial fragmentation

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Kelsey R Baron
   2. Samantha Oviedo
   3. Sophia Krasny
   4. Mashiat Zaman
   5. Rama Aldakhlallah
   6. Prerona Bora
   7. Prakhyat Mathur
   8. Gerald Pfeffer
   9. Michael J Bollong
   10. Timothy E Shutt
   11. Danielle A Grotjahn
   12. R Luke Wiseman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study identifies a new class of small molecules that activate the integrated stress response (ISR) via the kinase HRI. Convincing evidence, including the image analysis pipeline, indicates that two of these compounds promote mitochondrial elongation and protect against mitochondrial fragmentation caused by chemical stress conditions or by genetic alterations. These findings open an avenue for new strategies for mitochondrial dysfunction targeting linked to ISR alterations.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Electrostatic interactions in nucleosome and higher-order structures are regulated by protonation state of histone ionizable residue

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Houfang Zhang
   2. Wenhan Guo
   3. Wang Xu
   4. Anbang Li
   5. Lijun Jiang
   6. Lin Li
   7. Yunhui Peng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study explores the impact of pH changes and cancer mutations on nucleosome interactions and higher-order chromatin structures. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is solid, based on rigorous computational methods, including pKa prediction, electrostatic force calculation, and molecular dynamics simulations. The findings provide insights into how protonation states and cancer-associated mutations affect nucleosome electrostatics and chromatin organization, making this work of broad interest to chromatin biologists, cancer researchers, and computational biophysicists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Mapping vascular network architecture in primate brain using ferumoxytol-weighted laminar MRI

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Joonas A Autio
   2. Ikko Kimura
   3. Takayuki Ose
   4. Yuki Matsumoto
   5. Masahiro Ohno
   6. Yuta Urushibata
   7. Takuro Ikeda
   8. Matthew F Glasser
   9. David C van Essen
   10. Takuya Hayashi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable findings on the relative cerebral blood volume of non-human primates that move us closer to uncovering the functional and architectonic principles that govern the interplay between neuronal and vascular networks. The evidence of areal variations and of vessel counting and laminar analysis is solid. The lack of a direct comparison of their approach against better-established MRI-based methods for measuring hemodynamics and vascular structure somewhat weakens the evidence provided in the current paper version, but the current work is an significant step forward. The work will be of interest to NHP imaging scientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Post-retrieval noradrenergic activation impairs subsequent memory depending on cortico-hippocampal reactivation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Hendrik Heinbockel
   2. Gregor Leicht
   3. Anthony D Wagner
   4. Lars Schwabe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work presents important findings of a modulatory effect of yohimbine, an alpha2-adrenergic antagonist that raises noradrenaline levels, on the reconsolidation of emotionally neutral word-picture pairs, depending on the hippocampal and cortical reactivation during retrieval. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is convincing, with an elegant design combining fMRI and psychopharmacology. The work will be of broad interest to researchers working on memory.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Somatodendritic orientation determines tDCS-induced neuromodulation of Purkinje cell activity in awake mice

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Carlos A Sánchez-León
   2. Guillermo Sánchez-Garrido Campos
   3. Marta Fernández
   4. Álvaro Sánchez-López
   5. Javier F Medina
   6. Javier Márquez-Ruiz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this important and compelling study, Sánchez-León et al. investigate the effects of tDCS on the firing of single cerebellar neurons in awake and anesthetized mice. They find heterogeneous responses depending on the orientation of the recorded Purkinje cell. The paper may well explain part of the controversial and ambiguous outcomes of various clinical trials.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Cell crowding activates pro-invasive mechanotransduction pathway in high-grade DCIS via TRPV4 inhibition and cell volume reduction

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Xiangning Bu
    2. Nathanael Ashby
    3. Teresa Vitali
    4. Sulgi Lee
    5. Ananya Gottumukkala
    6. Kangsun Yun
    7. Sana Tabbara
    8. Patricia Latham
    9. Christine Teal
    10. Inhee Chung

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This fundamental study provides compelling evidence that TRPV4 plays a crucial role in mechanical sensing during cancer cell transition from non-invasive to invasive states, and offers novel insights into metastasis. By employing multiple experimental approaches, including pharmacological and genetic manipulation, as well as advanced imaging techniques, the authors demonstrate a strong correlation between TRPV4 dynamics, calcium homeostasis, and cell volume plasticity. The findings significantly enhance our understanding of mechanotransduction in cancer and present TRPV4 as a promising therapeutic target for inhibiting metastasis.

    Reviewed by eLife