eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Isolating Small Extracellular Vesicles from Small Volumes of Blood Plasma using size exclusion chromatography and density gradient ultracentrifugation: A Comparative Study

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Fang Kong
   2. Megha Upadya
   3. Andrew See Wong Weng
   4. Rinkoo Dalan
   5. Ming Dao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work provides a simple, rapid and valuable protocol for the isolation of small extracellular vesicles from small volumes of plasma, using two well-known methodologies, in tandem: size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and density gradient ultracentrifugation (DGUC). The authors exhaustively test these methodologies separately and in combination, showing superior results for the SEC-DGUC in terms of purity and yield. The results obtained in this work are convincing, using multiple state-of-art methodologies for the characterization of the isolates that support their conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Transcriptome-wide analysis of the function of Ded1 in translation preinitiation complex assembly in a reconstituted in vitro system

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Fujun Zhou
   2. Julie M Bocetti
   3. Meizhen Hou
   4. Daoming Qin
   5. Alan G Hinnebusch
   6. Jon R Lorsch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important paper as it is the first to use a reconstituted translation system to study competition among mRNAs for the initiation machinery. Understanding the principles of the biochemistry of mRNA competition for initiation factors cannot be achieved without such a system. The authors provide compelling evidence that Ded1 is required for efficient initiation of highly structured mRNAs. The findings are significant and validate the in vitro reconstituted system by recapitulating the effects of in-vivo perturbations of translation initiation by Ded1 mutants.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Projection neurons are necessary for the maintenance of the mouse olfactory circuit

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Luis Sánchez-Guardado
   2. Peyman Razavi
   3. Bo Wang
   4. Antuca Callejas-Marín
   5. Carlos Lois

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study shows that eliminating a large portion of the principal neurons in the mammalian olfactory bulb does not affect the initial establishment of the circuit but has an impact on its maintenance. The strength of the paper is that the anatomical changes induced by genetic ablation of neurons are clear-cut. There is solid support for the findings, with a description of the structural and behavioral effects of ablating the majority of M/T neurons.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Spatial transcriptomics in the adult Drosophila brain and body

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Jasper Janssens
   2. Pierre Mangeol
   3. Nikolai Hecker
   4. Gabriele Partel
   5. Katina I Spanier
   6. Joy N Ismail
   7. Gert J Hulselmans
   8. Stein Aerts
   9. Frank Schnorrer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents a method to visualize the location of the cell types discovered through single-cell RNA sequencing. The data allowed the authors to build spatial tissue atlases of the fly head and body, and to identify the location of previously unknown cell types. The data are convincing and appropriate, and the authors validate the methodology in line with the current state-of-the-art.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Population analyses reveal heterogenous encoding in the medial prefrontal cortex during naturalistic foraging

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Ji Hoon Jeong
   2. June-Seek Choi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study by Jeong and Choi studied neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) while rats performed a foraging paradigm in which rats forage for rewards in the absence or presence of a threatening object (Lobsterbot). The authors present interesting observations suggesting that the mPFC population activity switches between distinct functional modes conveying distinct task variables- such as the distance to the reward location and types of threat-avoidance behaviors-depending on the location of the animal. The reviewers thought that the results are overall convincing, appreciated the value of studying neural coding in naturalistic settings, and felt that this work offers significant insights into how the mPFC operates during foraging behavior involving reward-threat conflict.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Specific and comprehensive genetic targeting reveals brain-wide distribution and synaptic input patterns of GABAergic axo-axonic interneurons

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Ricardo Raudales
   2. Gukhan Kim
   3. Sean M Kelly
   4. Joshua Hatfield
   5. Wuqiang Guan
   6. Shengli Zhao
   7. Anirban Paul
   8. Yongjun Qian
   9. Bo Li
   10. Z Josh Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors develop a novel genetic strategy for specific and comprehensive labeling of axo-axonic cells, also referred to as chandelier cells, in the mouse brain. The approach and analysis are rigorous such that the data convincingly support the key conclusions, including the expanded distribution of axo-axonic cells throughout the brain. This study provides important new information about the distribution of a significant neuronal cell type, as well as new tools for future studies. This work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists who work on the anatomical and functional organization of neural circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Identification and characterization of intermediate states in mammalian neural crest cell epithelial to mesenchymal transition and delamination

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ruonan Zhao
   2. Emma L Moore
   3. Madelaine M Gogol
   4. Jay R Unruh
   5. Zulin Yu
   6. Allison R Scott
   7. Yan Wang
   8. Naresh K Rajendran
   9. Paul A Trainor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study reports compelling findings that intermediate states exist in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) during natural development and differentiation of mammalian neural crest cells, similar to recent reports in cancer. The authors determined that there were at least two paths to delamination and migration - one that occurs during S-phase of cell cycle and another during G2/M phase, and that the process of delamination is not restricted to cell fate. Finally, the authors showed that expression of Dlc1 may be used to identify cells in an intermediate state of EMT as well as their spatial location in the mouse embryo. The work will be of interest to developmental biologists, neurobiologists and cancer researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Revealing intact neuronal circuitry in centimeter-sized formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded brain

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Ya-Hui Lin
   2. Li-Wen Wang
   3. Yen-Hui Chen
   4. Yi-Chieh Chan
   5. Shang-Hsiu Hu
   6. Sheng-Yan Wu
   7. Chi-Shiun Chiang
   8. Guan-Jie Huang
   9. Shang-Da Yang
   10. Shi-Wei Chu
   11. Kuo-Chuan Wang
   12. Chin-Hsien Lin
   13. Pei-Hsin Huang
   14. Hwai-Jong Cheng
   15. Bi-Chang Chen
   16. Li-An Chu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The reprocessing and reanalysis of archived samples can yield further insights from past experiments. Here, a useful procedure to perform tissue clearing and immunolabeling on large-scale formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded brain specimens is convincingly evaluated on a set of archival pathology specimens, and its applicability to further such samples is analyzed. This method will be of interest to both neuroscientists and pathologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Mono-methylated histones control PARP-1 in chromatin and transcription

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Gbolahan Bamgbose
   2. Guillaume Bordet
   3. Niraj Lodhi
   4. Alexei Tulin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study presents convincing evidence for an association between PARP-1 and H4K20me1 in transcriptional regulation, supported by biochemical and ChIP-seq analyses. The work contributes significantly to our understanding of how Parp1 associates with target genes to regulate their expression.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Mycobacterium tuberculosis PhoP integrates stress response to intracellular survival by regulating cAMP level

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Hina Khan
    2. Partha Paul
    3. Harsh Goar
    4. Bhanwar Bamniya
    5. Navin Baid
    6. Dibyendu Sarkar

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study describes how PhoP regulates cyclic-AMP production in the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The authors provide convincing evidence that PhoP acts as a repressor of the cyclic-AMP-specific phosphodiesterase, Rv0805, which can degrade cyclic-AMP. The revised manuscript has addressed all outstanding comments and the work will be of interest to bacteriologists.

    Reviewed by eLife