eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Rescuing the Function of Missense-Mutated Tumor Suppressor VHL using Stabilizing Small Molecules

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Mariam Ahmed Fouad
   2. Christopher S Parry
   3. Sven A Miller
   4. Shipra Malhotra
   5. Glenn A Doyle
   6. Ezra Shimabenga
   7. Mashhura Nurilloeva
   8. Elena Bondarenko
   9. Grigorii V Andrianov
   10. Wayne Childers
   11. Benjamin E Blass
   12. Petr B Makhov
   13. Johnathan R Whetstine
   14. Margie L Clapper
   15. Erica A Golemis
   16. John Karanicolas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents important findings by identifying small molecules that can stabilize and refold missense-mutated VHL tumor suppressor protein, offering a potential therapeutic approach for clear cell renal cell carcinoma. The computational design approach is well-executed, but the evidence is incomplete due to insufficient demonstration that HIF2 downregulation occurs through on-target VHL rescue rather than off-target effects. Additional experiments with appropriate controls are needed to establish the specificity of the mechanism.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Amino acid homorepeats act as buffers to maintain proteostasis and constrain the compatible sequence space of proteomes

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Yukihiro Murase
   2. Naoki Kitamura
   3. Shotaro Namba
   4. Ayano Satoh
   5. Takashi Makino
   6. Ayako Moriya
   7. Hisao Moriya

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study analyzed the impact of amino acid homorepeats on protein expression and solubility in yeast and E. coli. The authors provided convincing evidence that hydrophobic and positively charged amino acids are toxic and that counterselection during evolution reduced the occurrence of such proteotoxic protein sequences. This study will be of interest to cell biologists and biochemists, particularly those working on proteostasis.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Single-cell lineage tracing identifies hemogenic endothelial cells in the adult mouse bone marrow

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Jing-Xin Feng
   2. Mei-Ting Yang
   3. Lili Li
   4. Caiyi C Li
   5. Ferenc Livák
   6. Jack Chen
   7. Yongmei Zhao
   8. Dunrui Wang
   9. Avinash Bhandoola
   10. Naomi Taylor
   11. Giovanna Tosato

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript by Feng et al. provides valuable evidence regarding the hematopoietic differentiation of bone marrow endothelial cells in the adult mouse. Overall, the authors have addressed our main concerns. Solid data now more strongly support long-term multi-lineage reconstitution of the adult hemogenic endothelial cells. However, critical data, especially regarding the endothelial cells' hematopoietic identity and functional capacity, remain insufficient, which limits the strength of the hemogenic claim, especially the assertion that these adult hemogenic ECs generate bona fide HSCs. Additional experiments would be necessary to fully rule out alternative explanations.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Miniscope Processing Suite (MPS): An Intuitive, No-Code, Scalable Pipeline for Long-Duration Calcium Imaging

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ari Peden-Asarch
   2. Meredith Weinstock
   3. Kevin R Coffey
   4. John F Neumaier

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study introduces MPS, an open-source pipeline that addresses a significant technical bottleneck by making miniscope data analysis more accessible. Characterized by speed and a low barrier to entry, the software's performance is supported by solid evidence. This work will be of interest to miniscope users seeking a streamlined, memory-efficient, end-to-end analysis solution.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. A Coma Pattern-Based Autofocusing Method Resolves Bacterial Cold Shock Response at Single-Cell Level

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Sihong Li
   2. Zhixin Ma
   3. Yue Yu
   4. Jinjuan Wang
   5. Yaxin Shen
   6. Xiaodong Cui
   7. Xiongfei Fu
   8. Shuqiang Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study introduces LUNA, a new autofocusing method that achieves nanoscale precision and robustly corrects focus drift during time-lapse microscopy, improving imaging under temperature shifts. The authors exploit this technical advance to investigate the bacterial cold shock response, providing solid evidence that individual cells continue to grow and divide in a highly coordinated process that cannot be observed in population-level measurements. This work offers a technical and conceptual framework for reconciling discrepancies between bulk and single-cell growth measurements, with broad relevance for cell biology and microbiology.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Boosting Hyperalignment Performance with Age-specific Templates

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yuqi Zhang
   2. Maria Ida Gobbini
   3. James V Haxby
   4. Ma Feilong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study advances our understanding of best practices for analyzing population-level data using advanced functional alignment methods. It provides convincing evidence that demographic-specific functional templates improve functional neuroimaging studies that use hyperalignment. This study will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists, neuroimaging methodologists, and computational researchers with an interest in the human brain.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A hypothalamo-septo-hippocampal circuit for REM sleep-dependent consolidation of social memory

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Tingliang Jian
   2. Wenjun Jin
   3. Mengru Liang
   4. Xiang Liao
   5. Kuan Zhang
   6. Shanshan Liang
   7. Chunqing Zhang
   8. Chao He
   9. Hongbo Jia
   10. Yanjiang Wang
   11. Jian Han
   12. Xiaowei Chen
   13. Han Qin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study systematically characterizes the activity patterns of a lateral supramammillary nucleus (SuM)-medial septum (MS)-hippocampus circuit across sleep-wake cycles and its role in memory consolidation. This work is fundamental because it identifies a previously unrecognized brain hub that helps coordinate how different types of memory are supported during a specific sleep state, advancing our understanding of how sleep contributes to memory organization. The work is well-designed, and the data are solid, supporting clear and significant conclusions; however, some mechanistic details and causal relationships would benefit from further clarification or additional experiments. The paper provides new insights into how distinct memory modalities could be processed by parallel, sleep-active subcortical-hippocampal circuits, which would be of general interest to a broad neuroscience audience.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Butyrate rescues chlorpyrifos-induced social deficits through inhibition of class I histone deacetylases

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Leonardo Diaz
   2. Ally Xinyi Kong
   3. Ping Zhang
   4. Jinhua Chi
   5. Khoa Pham
   6. Maja Johnson
   7. Aiden Eno
   8. Isabelle Douglas
   9. Yuxuan Mao
   10. James W MacDonald
   11. Julia Yue Cui
   12. Theo Bammler
   13. Haiwei Gu
   14. Yijie Geng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable manuscript demonstrates that embryonic exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) impairs juvenile zebrafish social behavior and sets out to define the underlying mechanism. The authors provide solid evidence that butyrate and class I histone deacetylases are involved, as their modulation rescues the phenotype. However, claims that CPF acts through the microbiome and nitric oxide signaling remain correlative and incomplete. Additional validation would strengthen the intriguing hypotheses raised by this work.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Mycobacterium tuberculosis suppresses protective Th17 responses during infection

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Alex Zilinskas
   2. Amir Balakhmet
   3. Douglas Fox
   4. Heyuan Michael Ni
   5. Carolina Agudelo
   6. Helia Samani
   7. Sarah A Stanley

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study demonstrates that Mycobacterium tuberculosis suppresses protective Th17/IL-17 responses in C57BL/6 mice via a Tbet-dependent mechanism involving the virulence factors ESX-1 and PDIM, as mutants lacking these factors induce significantly higher IL-17-producing CD4 T cells and IL-17A in the lungs compared to wild-type bacteria. The experiments are rigorous and well-designed, combining host knockouts and bacterial mutants to yield solid evidence pointing to cross-regulation between Th1 and Th17 pathways, including reduced IL-23 in draining lymph node dendritic cells. However, some of the data on IFN-γ effects or lymph node-specific mechanisms are incomplete and require deeper mechanistic insight, such as direct T cell transcription factor analysis in lymph nodes and broader host validation, to strengthen the work. Overall, the findings provide insight into how bacterial virulence factors limit Th17 induction, thereby promoting persistence, and will interest immunologists and TB researchers focused on host-pathogen balance and vaccine strategies.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Computational mechanisms for temporal integration in the anterior claustrum

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Kuenbae Sohn
    2. Donghyeon Yoon
    3. Junghwa Lee
    4. Sukwoo Choi

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This work provides an important modeling-based framework for understanding the processes of temporal integration in the claustrum. These mechanisms could support a broader range of integrative brain function. However, at present, the evidence remains at least in part incomplete, primarily because of over-interpretation of the results and their connection to neurophysiology.

    Reviewed by eLife