eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Confirmation of HLA-II associations with TB susceptibility in admixed African samples

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Dayna Adrienne Croock
   2. Yolandi Swart
   3. Haiko Schurz
   4. Desiree C Petersen
   5. Marlo Möller
   6. Caitlin Uren

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study confirms the association between the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-II region and tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility in genetically admixed South African populations, specifically identifying a near-genome-wide significant association in the HLA-DPB1 gene, which originates from KhoeSan ancestry. The evidence supporting the association between the HLA-II region and TB susceptibility is solid, and the work will be of interest to those studying the genetic basis of tuberculosis susceptibility/infection resistance.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Targeted anticancer pre-vinylsulfone covalent inhibitors of carbonic anhydrase IX

   This article has 22 authors:

   1. Aivaras Vaškevičius
   2. Denis Baronas
   3. Janis Leitans
   4. Agnė Kvietkauskaitė
   5. Audronė Rukšėnaitė
   6. Elena Manakova
   7. Zigmantas Toleikis
   8. Algirdas Kaupinis
   9. Andris Kazaks
   10. Marius Gedgaudas
   11. Aurelija Mickevičiūtė
   12. Vaida Juozapaitienė
   13. Helgi B Schiöth
   14. Kristaps Jaudzems
   15. Mindaugas Valius
   16. Kaspars Tars
   17. Saulius Gražulis
   18. Franz-Josef Meyer-Almes
   19. Jurgita Matulienė
   20. Asta Zubrienė
   21. Virginija Dudutienė
   22. Daumantas Matulis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper reports the synthesis of covalent inhibitors bearing a unique fragment as a protected covalent warhead for irreversible binding to histidine in carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzymes. These findings are important due to the broad utility of the approach for covalent drug discovery applications and could have long-term impacts on related covalent targeting approaches. The data convincingly support the main conclusions of the paper.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Establishing comprehensive quaternary structural proteomes from genome sequence

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Edward Alexander Catoiu
   2. Nathan Mih
   3. Maxwell Lu
   4. Bernhard Palsson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents an important platform for mapping mutation effects onto higher-level protein structural information, addressing a significant gap in current research. While the work is ambitious and incorporates often-overlooked aspects of higher-order structure, the strength of the evidence supporting some results seems incomplete. The quaternary structure modeling appears to underestimate oligomeric proteins compared to previous studies, and the mutation analysis lacks crucial baseline information. Despite these limitations, the method has potential for broader applications and generalization to additional organisms, warranting further development and refinement.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Dual-modal metabolic analysis reveals hypothermia-reversible uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation in neonatal brain hypoxia-ischemia

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Naidi Sun
   2. Yu-Yo Sun
   3. Rui Cao
   4. Hong-Ru Chen
   5. Yiming Wang
   6. Elizabeth Fugate
   7. Marchelle R Smucker
   8. Yi-Min Kuo
   9. Ellen P Grant
   10. Diana M Lindquist
   11. Chia-Yi Kuan
   12. Song Hu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study that utilized in vivo optical measurements of the cortical metabolic rate of O2 and blood flow, as well as measurements in isolated mitochondria to assess the uncoupling of the oxidative phosphorylation due to hypoxia-ischemia injury of the neonatal brain, and effects of the hypothermia treatment. The combination of state-of-the-art optical measurements, mitochondrial assays, and the use of various control experiments provides convincing evidence for the derived conclusions. This work will be of interest to those in the mitochrondrial metabolomics, brain injury and hypoxia fields.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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