eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Disassembly of embryonic keratin filaments promotes pancreatic cancer metastases

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Ryan R. Kawalerski
   2. Mariana Torrente Gonçalves
   3. Chun-Hao Pan
   4. Robert Tseng
   5. Lucia Roa-Peña
   6. Cindy V. Leiton
   7. Luke A. Torre-Healy
   8. Taryn Boyle
   9. Sumedha Chowdhury
   10. Natasha T. Snider
   11. Kenneth R. Shroyer
   12. Luisa F. Escobar-Hoyos

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors address the function of keratin 17 (K17), a marker of the most aggressive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs). While this potentially useful study addresses a significant area of pancreatic cancer research, the lack of evidence demonstrating nuclear localization of K17 in human PDAC and the excessive reliance on a single cell line reduce the significance of the work. Moreover, the weak phenotypes of K17 phosphosite mutants provide incomplete support for the authors' mechanistic model.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Theoretical principles explain the structure of the insect head direction circuit

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Pau Vilimelis Aceituno
   2. Dominic Dall'Osto
   3. Ioannis Pisokas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work suggests that the observed cosine-like activity in the head direction circuit of insects not only subserves vector addition but also minimizes noise in the representation. The authors provide solid evidence using the locust and fruit fly connectomes. The work raises important theoretical questions about the organization of the navigation system and will be of interest to theoretical and experimental researchers studying navigation.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Early evolution of the ecdysozoan body plan

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Deng Wang
   2. Yaqin Qiang
   3. Junfeng Guo
   4. Jean Vannier
   5. Zuchen Song
   6. Jiaxin Peng
   7. Boyao Zhang
   8. Jie Sun
   9. Yilun Yu
   10. Yiheng Zhang
   11. Tao Zhang
   12. Xiaoguang Yang
   13. Jian Han

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides a fundamental advance in palaeontology by reporting the fossils of a new invertebrate, Beretella spinosa, and inferring its relationship with already described species. The analysis placed the newly described species in the earliest branch of moulting invertebrates. The study, supported by convincing fossil observation, hypothesizes that early moulting invertebrate animals were not vermiform.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Functional characterization of all CDKN2A missense variants and comparison to in silico models of pathogenicity

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Hirokazu Kimura
   2. Kamel Lahouel
   3. Cristian Tomasetti
   4. Nicholas Jason Roberts

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a saturation mutagenesis screening of CDKN2A gene, successfully assessing the functionality of the missense variants. The work is solid and well-prosecuted. The manuscript was improved during the revision process and this work will serve as a valuable resource for diagnostic labs as well as cancer geneticists.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Remodeling of skeletal muscle myosin metabolic states in hibernating mammals

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Christopher TA Lewis
   2. Elise G Melhedegaard
   3. Marija M Ognjanovic
   4. Mathilde S Olsen
   5. Jenni Laitila
   6. Robert AE Seaborne
   7. Magnus Gronset
   8. Changxin Zhang
   9. Hiroyuki Iwamoto
   10. Anthony L Hessel
   11. Michel N Kuehn
   12. Carla Merino
   13. Nuria Amigo
   14. Ole Frobert
   15. Sylvain Giroud
   16. James F Staples
   17. Anna V Goropashnaya
   18. Vadim B Fedorov
   19. Brian Barnes
   20. Oivind Toien
   21. Kelly Drew
   22. Ryan J Sprenger
   23. Julien Ochala

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The work by Lewis and co-workers presents important findings on the role of myosin structure/energetics on the molecular mechanisms of hibernation by comparing muscle samples from small and large hibernating mammals. The solid methodological approaches have revealed insights into the mechanisms of non-shivering thermogenesis and energy expenditure.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Mechanical force of uterine occupation enables large vesicle extrusion from proteostressed maternal neurons

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Guoqiang Wang
   2. Ryan J Guasp
   3. Sangeena Salam
   4. Edward Chuang
   5. Andrés Morera
   6. Anna J Smart
   7. David Jimenez
   8. Sahana Shekhar
   9. Emily Friedman
   10. Ilija Melentijevic
   11. Ken C Nguyen
   12. David H Hall
   13. Barth D Grant
   14. Monica Driscoll

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study explores the potential influence of physiologically relevant mechanical forces on the extrusion of vesicles from C. elegans neurons. The authors provide compelling evidence to support the idea that uterine distension per se can induce vesicular extrusion from adjacent neurons. Overall, this work will be of interest to neuroscientists and investigators in the extracellular vesicle and proteostasis fields.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Working memory gating in obesity is moderated by striatal dopaminergic gene variants

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Nadine Herzog
   2. Hendrik Hartmann
   3. Lieneke Katharina Janssen
   4. Arsene Kanyamibwa
   5. Maria Waltmann
   6. Peter Kovacs
   7. Lorenz Deserno
   8. Sean Fallon
   9. Arno Villringer
   10. Annette Horstmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The present study provides valuable evidence on the neurochemical mechanisms underlying working memory in obesity. The authors' approach considering specific working memory operations (maintenance, updating) and putative dopaminergic genes is solid, though the inclusion of a more direct measure of dopamine signaling would have strengthened the work.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Differential conformational dynamics in two type-A RNA-binding domains drive the double-stranded RNA recognition and binding

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Firdousi Parvez
   2. Devika Sangpal
   3. Harshad Paithankar
   4. Zainab Amin
   5. Jeetender Chugh

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a useful comparison of the dynamic properties of two RNA-binding domains. The data collection and analysis are solid, making excellent use of a suite of NMR experiments and ITC data. Nonetheless, reported evidence was found to only partially support the proposed connection between the backbone dynamics of the tandem domains and their RNA binding activity. This work will be of interest to biophysicists working on RNA-binding proteins.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Uncovering the BIN1-SH3 interactome underpinning centronuclear myopathy

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Boglarka Zambo
   2. Evelina Edelweiss
   3. Bastien Morlet
   4. Luc Negroni
   5. Matyas Pajkos
   6. Zsuzsanna Dosztanyi
   7. Soren Ostergaard
   8. Gilles Trave
   9. Jocelyn Laporte
   10. Gergo Gogl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work describes a novel affinity interactomics approach that allows investigators to identify networks of protein-protein interactions in cells. The important findings presented here describe the application of this technique to the SH3 domain of the membrane remodeling Bridging Integrator 1 (BIN1), the truncation of which leads to centronuclear myopathy. The authors present solid evidence that BIN1 SH3 engages with an unexpectedly high number of cellular proteins, many of which are linked to skeletal muscle disease, and evidence is presented to suggest that BIN1 may play a role in mitosis creating the potential for new avenues in drug development efforts. Some of the findings, however, remain rather preliminary, lack sufficient replicates and may require additional experiments to definitively support the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Aberrant methylation and expression of TNXB promote chondrocyte apoptosis and extracullar matrix degradation in hemophilic arthropathy via AKT signaling

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Jiali Chen
    2. Qinghe Zeng
    3. Xu Wang
    4. Rui Xu
    5. Weidong Wang
    6. Yuliang Huang
    7. Qi Sun
    8. Wenhua Yuan
    9. Pinger Wang
    10. Di Chen
    11. Peijian Tong
    12. Hongting Jin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study identifies the TNXB-AKT pathway as a potential mechanism underlying hemophilia-associated cartilage degeneration. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, with murine and human patient evidence as well as genome-wide DNA methylation analysis. This paper would be of interest to cell biologists and biochemists working on the field of musculoskeletal disorders.

    Reviewed by eLife