eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The title and authors for this article are not available from our external data provider yet:
   10.48550/arxiv.2301.00759v2

2. Hemodynamics regulate spatiotemporal artery muscularization in the developing circle of Willis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Siyuan Cheng
   2. Ivan Fan Xia
   3. Renate Wanner
   4. Javier Abello
   5. Amber N Stratman
   6. Stefania Nicoli

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides the first analysis of vascular stabilization on the critical and evolutionarily conserved structure around the Circle of Willis in the brain, strengthened by using parallel in vivo and in vitro experimental approaches. The evidence supporting the claims is solid and the work will be valuable for scientists studying developmental and disease-related vascular stabilization.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The non-mitotic role of HMMR in regulating the localization of TPX2 and the dynamics of microtubules in neurons

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yi-Ju Chen
   2. Shun-Cheng Tseng
   3. Peng-Tzu Chen
   4. Eric Hwang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In their valuable study, Chen et al. investigate the neuronal role of HMMR, a microtubule-associated protein typically associated with cell division. Their findings indicate that HMMR is necessary for proper neuronal morphology and the generation of polymerizing microtubules within neurites, potentially by promoting the function of TPX2. This solid body of work is the first step in deciphering the influence of a mitotic microtubule-associated protein in organizing microtubules in neurons and will be of interest to the neurobiology and cytoskeleton fields.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Rtf1-dependent transcriptional pausing regulates cardiogenesis

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Adam D Langenbacher
   2. Fei Lu
   3. Luna Tsang
   4. Zi Yi Stephanie Huang
   5. Benjamin Keer
   6. Zhiyu Tian
   7. Alette Eide
   8. Matteo Pellegrini
   9. Haruko Nakano
   10. Atsushi Nakano
   11. Jau-Nian Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study shows that a controlled pause in gene reading is required for early heart cells to form during development. The authors demonstrate that loss of this pause prevents the proper activation of the heart-producing program across animal and stem cell systems. The evidence is compelling, supported by careful genomic and functional analyses that clearly define the developmental block. Overall, this work will interest developmental biologists and inspire further studies on the origins of early heart defects.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Biocalcification in porcelaneous foraminifera

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Zofia Dubicka
   2. Jarosław Tyszka
   3. Agnieszka Pałczyńska
   4. Michelle Höhne
   5. Jelle Bijma
   6. Max Jense
   7. Nienke Klerks
   8. Ulf Bickmeyer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript provides important information on the calcification process, especially the properties and formation of freshly formed tests (the foraminiferan shells), in the miliolid foraminiferan species Pseudolachlanella eburnea. The evidence from the high-quality SEM images is convincing although the fluorescence images only provide indirect support for the calcification process.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Human pannexin 1 channel is not phosphorylated by Src tyrosine kinase at Tyr199 and Tyr309

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Zheng Ruan
   2. Junuk Lee
   3. Yangyang Li
   4. Juan Du
   5. Wei Lü

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The current manuscript re-examines an established claim in the literature that human PANX-1 is regulated by Src kinase phosphorylation at two tyrosine residues, Y199 and Y309. This issue is important for our understanding of Pannexin channel regulation. The authors present an extensive series of experiments that fail to detect PANX-1 phosphorylation at these sites. Although the authors' approach is more rigorous than the previous studies, this work relies primarily on negative results that are not unambiguously definitive; the work nonetheless provides a compelling reason for the field to reexamine conclusions drawn in earlier studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Human DCP1 is crucial for mRNA decapping and possesses paralog-specific gene regulating functions

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Ting-Wen Chen
   2. Hsiao-Wei Liao
   3. Michelle Noble
   4. Jing-Yi Siao
   5. Yu-Hsuan Cheng
   6. Wei-Chung Chiang
   7. Yi-Tzu Lo
   8. Chung-Te Chang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study attempts to understand the functional roles of the human DCP1 paralogs in regulating RNA decay by DCP2. Using a combination of cellular-based assays and in vitro assays, the authors conclude that DCP1a/b plays a role in regulating DCP2 activity. While this revised version presents some new and interesting observations on human DCP1, the underlying data to support its claims remain incomplete. Overall, these results will be useful to the RNA community.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. CoCoNuTs are a diverse subclass of Type IV restriction systems predicted to target RNA

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ryan T Bell
   2. Harutyun Sahakyan
   3. Kira S Makarova
   4. Yuri I Wolf
   5. Eugene V Koonin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper marks a fundamental advance in our understanding of prokaryotic Type IV restriction systems. The authors provide an encyclopedic overview of a hitherto uncharacterized branch of these systems, which they name CoCoNuTs, for coiled-coil nuclease tandems. They provide compelling evidence that these nucleases target RNA and are part of an echeloned defense response following viral infection. This article will be of great interest to scientists studying prokaryotic immunity mechanisms, as well as broadly to protein scientists engaged in the analysis, classification, and functional annotation of the proteome of life.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Chemoproteomics validates selective targeting of Plasmodium M1 alanyl aminopeptidase as an antimalarial strategy

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Carlo Giannangelo
   2. Matthew P Challis
   3. Ghizal Siddiqui
   4. Rebecca Edgar
   5. Tess R Malcolm
   6. Chaille T Webb
   7. Nyssa Drinkwater
   8. Natalie Vinh
   9. Christopher Macraild
   10. Natalie Counihan
   11. Sandra Duffy
   12. Sergio Wittlin
   13. Shane M Devine
   14. Vicky M Avery
   15. Tania De Koning-Ward
   16. Peter Scammells
   17. Sheena McGowan
   18. Darren J Creek

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript makes an important contribution to antimalarial drug discovery, utilizing diverse systems biology methodologies. It focuses on an improved M1 metalloprotease inhibitor and provides compelling evidence for the utility of chemoproteomics in pinpointing PfA-M1 targeting. Additionally, metabolomic analysis reveals specific alterations in the final steps of hemoglobin breakdown. These findings highlight the potential of the developed methodology not only for PfA-M1 targeting but also for other inhibitors targeting various malarial proteins or pathways.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Mesoscale functional organization and connectivity of color, disparity, and naturalistic texture in human second visual area

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Hailin Ai
    2. Weiru Lin
    3. Chengwen Liu
    4. Nihong Chen
    5. Peng Zhang

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study builds on previous findings showing modular organisation of primate visual cortical areas by presenting important results about the cortical processing of colour, disparity and naturalistic textures in the human visual cortex at the spatial scale of cortical layers and columns using state-of-the-art high-resolution fMRI methods at ultra-high magnetic field strength (7 T). Solid evidence supports an interesting layer-specific informational connectivity analysis to infer information flow across early visual areas for processing disparity and color signals. While the question of how the modularity of representation relates to cortical hierarchical processing is interesting, the findings that texture does not map onto previously established columnar architecture in V2 is suggestive. The successful application of high-resolution fMRI methods to study the functional organization along cortical columns and layers is relevant to a broad readership interested in general neuroscience.

    Reviewed by eLife