eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Released bacterial ATP shapes local and systemic inflammation during abdominal sepsis

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Daniel Spari
   2. Annina Schmid
   3. Daniel Sanchez-Taltavull
   4. Shaira Murugan
   5. Keely Keller
   6. Nadia Ennaciri
   7. Lilian Salm
   8. Deborah Stroka
   9. Guido Beldi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study advances our understanding of the role of bacterial-derived extracellular ATP in the pathogenesis of sepsis. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, although not all concerns from a previous round of reviews were adequately addressed. The work will be of broad interest to researchers on microbiology and infectious diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. N-acetylation of α-synuclein enhances synaptic vesicle clustering mediated by α-synuclein and lysophosphatidylcholine

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Chuchu Wang
   2. Chunyu Zhao
   3. Hu Xiao
   4. Jiali Qiang
   5. Zhenying Liu
   6. Jinge Gu
   7. Shengnan Zhang
   8. Dan Li
   9. Yaoyang Zhang
   10. Jacqueline Burré
   11. Jiajia Diao
   12. Cong Liu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this useful study, the authors show that N-acetylation of synuclein increases clustering of synaptic vesicles in vitro and that this effect is mediated by enhanced interaction with lysophosphatidylcholine. While the evidence for enhanced clustering is largely solid, the biological significance remains unclear.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rev7 promotes non-homologous end-joining by blocking Mre11 nuclease and Rad50’s ATPase activities and homologous recombination

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Sugith Badugu
   2. Kshitiza Mohan Dhyani
   3. Manoj Thakur
   4. Kalappa Muniyappa

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript reports important data providing evidence that a 42 amino acid region of Rev7 is necessary and sufficient for interaction with the Rad50-Mre11-Xrs2 complex in budding yeast. The authors conclude that Rev7 inhibits the Rad50 ATPase and the Mre11 nuclease with the exception of ssDNA exonuclease activity. The convincing data largely support the conclusions, although the effect of Rev7 on homologous recombination is less well documented and the observed effect on resection is moderate. Specifically, the result that the Rev7 C-terminal truncation lacking the 42 amino acid region still suppresses homologous recombination is unexpected and unexplained.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. De novo-designed minibinders expand the synthetic biology sensing repertoire

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Zara Y Weinberg
   2. Sarah S Soliman
   3. Matthew S Kim
   4. Devan H Shah
   5. Irene P Chen
   6. Melanie Ott
   7. Wendell A Lim
   8. Hana El-Samad

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful investigation of the use of small, de novo-designed protein binding domains (mini-binders) against the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and EGFR, as ligand binding domains on two classes of synthetic receptors, second-generation synNotch (SNIPR) and CAR. The methods and evidence supporting the focused claims are solid. This work will be of interest to synthetic biologists and cell engineers as a starting point to map out the rules for receptor engineering based on mini-binders and ultimately to advance them in biomedical applications.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Lack of evidence supporting transgenerational effects of non-transmitted paternal alleles on the murine transcriptome

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Rodrigo Gularte-Mérida
   2. Carole Charlier
   3. Michel Georges

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important article presents the results of a large screen for non-genetic transgenerational effects that may influence gene expression and other phenotypes in mice. An extraordinary amount of mouse breeding, phenotyping, and RNA sequencing data provide compelling evidence that, for the phenotypes and genomic regions interrogated in these mouse strains, non-genetic transgenerational effects of appreciable magnitude are likely to be extremely rare. This paper will be of broad interest to geneticists and of particular interest to those studying epigenetic inheritance.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Endocannabinoids and their receptors modulate endometriosis pathogenesis and immune response

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Harshavardhan Lingegowda
   2. Katherine B Zutautas
   3. Yuhong Wei
   4. Priyanka Yolmo
   5. Danielle J Sisnett
   6. Alison McCallion
   7. Madhuri Koti
   8. Chandrakant Tayade

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable findings on how the endocannabinoid system is involved in endometriosis progression using CNR1 and CNR2 knockout (KO) mouse models. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is incomplete; including bulk RNA-seq, flow cytometry, and imaging mass cytometry would have strengthened the study. This work might be of interest to medical scientists working on endometriosis.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. FoxO factors are essential for maintaining organ homeostasis by acting as stress sensors in airway epithelial cells

   This article has 19 authors:

   1. Karin Uliczka
   2. Judith Bossen
   3. Ulrich M. Zissler
   4. Christine Fink
   5. Xiao Niu
   6. Mario Pieper
   7. Ruben D. Prange
   8. Christina Vock
   9. Christina Wagner
   10. Mirjam Knop
   11. Ahmed Abdelsadik
   12. Sören Franzenburg
   13. Iris Bruchhaus
   14. Michael Wegmann
   15. Carsten B. Schmidt-Weber
   16. Peter König
   17. Petra Pfefferle
   18. Holger Heine
   19. Thomas Roeder

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study investigates, from Drosophila to mammals, the role of the Forkhead box O (FoxO) transcription factors in airway epithelial cells' response to stressors including hypoxia, temperature variations, and oxidative stress. The findings suggest a conserved role of FoxO in maintaining airway homeostasis across species. However, limitations in the specificity and concerns with the loss-of-function experiments render the evidence presented incomplete. Nonetheless, this study highlights FoxO's potential relevance in respiratory diseases like asthma and offers insights into potential therapeutic targets for conditions affecting airway health.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Heterozygous variants in PLCG1 affect hearing, vision, cardiac, and immune function

   This article has 30 authors:

   1. Mengqi Ma
   2. Yiming Zheng
   3. Mingxi Deng
   4. Shenzhao Lu
   5. Xueyang Pan
   6. Xi Luo
   7. Michelle Etoundi
   8. David Li-Kroeger
   9. Kim C Worley
   10. Lindsay C Burrage
   11. Lauren S Blieden
   12. Aimee Allworth
   13. Wei-Liang Chen
   14. Giuseppe Merla
   15. Barbara Mandriani
   16. Catherine E Otten
   17. Pierre Blanc
   18. Jill A Rosenfeld
   19. Debdeep Dutta
   20. Shinya Yamamoto
   21. Michael F Wangler
   22. Ian A Glass
   23. Jingheng Chen
   24. Elizabeth Blue
   25. Paolo Prontera
   26. Jeremie Rosain
   27. Sandrine Marlin
   28. Seema R Lalani
   29. Hugo J Bellen
   30. Undiagnosed Diseases Network

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reveals how Drosophila may be used to investigate the role of missense variants in the PLCG1 phospholipase gene in human diseases. The experimental evidence is compelling and brings together rigorous analysis of clinical and model organism phenotypes with a structural analysis of the PLCG1 protein.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Merging multi-omics with proteome integral solubility alteration unveils antibiotic mode of action

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ritwik Maity
   2. Xuepei Zhang
   3. Francesca Romana Liberati
   4. Chiara Scribani Rossi
   5. Francesca Cutruzzolá
   6. Serena Rinaldo
   7. Massimiliano Gaetani
   8. José Antonio Aínsa
   9. Javier Sancho

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study provides insights into how pathogens respond, on a systemic level including several gene targets and clusters, to selected antimicrobial molecules. Compelling evidence is provided, through multi-omics and functional approaches, that very similar molecules originally designed to target the same bacterial protein act differently within the context of the whole set of cellular transcripts, expressed proteins, and pre-lethal metabolic changes. Given the rapid accumulation of omics data and the much slower capacity of extracting biologically relevant insights from big data, this work exemplifies how the development of sensitive data analysis is still a major necessity in modern research.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Adult neurogenesis through glial transdifferentiation in a CNS injury paradigm

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Sergio Casas-Tinto
    2. Nuria Garcia-Guillen
    3. María Losada-Perez

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      In this work, the authors use a Drosophila melanogaster adult ventral nerve cord injury model extending and confirming previous observations. This important study reveals key aspects of adult neural plasticity. Taking advantage of several genetic reporter and fate tracing tools, the authors provide solid evidence for different forms of glial plasticity, that are increased upon injury. The significance of the generated cell types under homeostatic conditions and in response to injury remains to be further explored and open up new avenues of research.

    Reviewed by eLife