eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The substrate-binding domains of the osmoregulatory ABC importer OpuA transiently interact

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Marco van den Noort
   2. Panagiotis Drougkas
   3. Cristina Paulino
   4. Bert Poolman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The OpuA Type I ABC importer uses two substrate binding domains to capture extracellular glycine betaine and present the substrate to the transmembrane domain for subsequent transport and correction of internal dehydration. This study presents valuable findings addressing the question of whether the two substrate binding domains of OpuA dock and physically interact in a salt-dependent manner. The single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer and cryogenic electron microscopy data that are presented provide convincing support for the existence of a transient interaction between the substrate binding domains that depends on ionic strength, laying a foundation for future studies exploring how this interaction is involved in the overall transport mechanism.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. High-risk Escherichia coli clones that cause neonatal meningitis and association with recrudescent infection

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Nguyen Thi Khanh Nhu
   2. Minh-Duy Phan
   3. Steven J Hancock
   4. Kate M Peters
   5. Laura Alvarez-Fraga
   6. Brian M Forde
   7. Stacey B Andersen
   8. Thyl Miliya
   9. Patrick NA Harris
   10. Scott A Beatson
   11. Sanmarie Schlebusch
   12. Haakon Bergh
   13. Paul Turner
   14. Annelie Brauner
   15. Benita Westerlund-Wikström
   16. Adam D Irwin
   17. Mark A Schembri

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study presents findings characterising the genomic features of E. coli isolated from neonatal meningitis from seven countries, and documents bacterial persistence and reinfection in two case studies. The genomic analyses are solid, although the inclusion of a larger number of isolates from more diverse geographies would have strengthened the generalisability of findings. The work will be of interest to people involved in the management of neonatal meningitis patients, and those studying E. coli epidemiology, diversity, and pathogenesis.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cannabinoid combination targets NOTCH1-mutated T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia through the integrated stress response pathway

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Elazar Besser
   2. Anat Gelfand
   3. Shiri Procaccia
   4. Paula Berman
   5. David Meiri

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study follows up on previous work defining the anti-leukemic effects of a previously characterized cannabis extract on Notch-activated T cells and identifies several pathways that mediate its anti-cancer activity including the ER calcium and integrated stress response. The evidence is solid, but several concerns remain including the over reliance on a single cell line for the majority of the studies and lack of integration of the observations with existing literature

   Reviewed by eLife

4. GTPase activating protein DLC1 spatio-temporally regulates Rho signaling

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Max Heydasch
   2. Lucien Hinderling
   3. Jakobus van Unen
   4. Maciej Dobrzynski
   5. Olivier Pertz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on how the GAP DLC1, a deactivator of the small GTPase RhoA, regulates RhoA activity globally as well as at Focal Adhesions. Using a new acute optogenetic system coupled to a RhoA activity biosensor, the authors present solid evidence that DLC1 amplifies local Rho activity at Focal Adhesions. Nevertheless, the proposed mechanism could be further supported by a deeper analysis of the data.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Microglia facilitate and stabilize the response to general anesthesia via modulating the neuronal network in a brain region-specific manner

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Yang He
   2. Taohui Liu
   3. Quansheng He
   4. Wei Ke
   5. Xiaoyu Li
   6. Jinjin Du
   7. Suixin Deng
   8. Zhenfeng Shu
   9. Jialin Wu
   10. Baozhi Yang
   11. Yuqing Wang
   12. Ying Mao
   13. Yanxia Rao
   14. Yousheng Shu
   15. Bo Peng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the mechanisms underlying general anesthesia, with a focus on microglial regulation. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although some of the novelty of these findings may be reduced based on the recent publication of a similar study. The work will be of interest to medical biologists working on mechanisms of anesthesia, microglia, and neuron-microglia interaction.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Protein language model-embedded geometric graphs power inter-protein contact prediction

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Yunda Si
   2. Chengfei Yan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a useful deep learning-based inter-protein contact prediction method named PLMGraph-Inter which combines protein language models and geometric graphs. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The authors show that their approach may be used in cases where AlphaFold-Multimer performs poorly. This work will be of interest to researchers working on protein complex structure prediction, particularly when accurate experimental structures are available for one or both of the monomers in isolation.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Genome-wide Functional Characterization of Escherichia coli Promoters and Sequence Elements Encoding Their Regulation

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Guillaume Urtecho
   2. Kimberly D. Insigne
   3. Arielle D. Tripp
   4. Marcia S. Brinck
   5. Nathan B. Lubock
   6. Christopher Acree
   7. Hwangbeom Kim
   8. Tracey Chan
   9. Sriram Kosuri

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Urtecho et al. use genome-integrated massively parallel reporter assays to catalog and characterize promoters throughout the Escherichia coli genome. The result is a state-of-the-art atlas of promoters, coupled with information on their regulation, that is readily accessible through the website http://ecolipromoterdb.com. This compelling work provides an important resource for researchers studying bacterial transcriptional regulation.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Sensorimotor mechanisms selective to numerosity derived from individual differences

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Giovanni Anobile
   2. Irene Petrizzo
   3. Daisy Paiardini
   4. David Burr
   5. Guido Marco Cicchini

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This potentially important paper addresses the question of how numerical information is represented in the human brain. Experimental findings are interpreted as providing evidence for a sensorimotor mechanism that involves channels, each tuned to a particular numerical range. While this is an interesting application of methodologies used to identify the presence of channels, the evidence supporting the claim that these have a sensorimotor basis is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. The title and authors for this article are not available from our external data provider yet:
   10.48550/arxiv.2112.05098

10. The reuniens nucleus of the thalamus facilitates hippocampo-cortical dialogue during sleep

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Diellor Basha
    2. Amirmohammad Azarmehri
    3. Elian Proulx
    4. Sylvain Chauvette
    5. Maryam Ghorbani
    6. Igor Timofeev

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The important manuscript presents convincing evidence of temporal correlations during specific oscillatory activity between the prefrontal cortex, thalamic nucleus reuniens, and the hippocampus, in naturally sleeping animals. Such correlations represent solid evidence to support the notion that the thalamic nucleus reuniens participates in the hippocampal and prefrontal cortex dialogue subserving memory processes.

    Reviewed by eLife