eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Evolutionary trade-offs in dormancy phenology

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Théo Constant
   2. F Stephen Dobson
   3. Caroline Habold
   4. Sylvain Giroud

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable and ambitious review examines seasonal dormancy in various species, including hibernating mammals (excluding bats and bears) and ectotherms. It provides a solid test of hypotheses on dormancy timing, considering energetic constraints and life history as alternative drivers. The review will be of interest to evolutionary biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. LRMP inhibits cAMP potentiation of HCN4 channels by disrupting intramolecular signal transduction

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Colin H Peters
   2. Rohit K Singh
   3. Avery A Langley
   4. William G Nichols
   5. Hannah R Ferris
   6. Danielle A Jeffrey
   7. Catherine Proenza
   8. John R Bankston

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study identifies the molecular determinants of LRMP co-regulation of HCN 4 activity. The evidence supporting the conclusions, which is compelling, is backed by rigorous electrophysiological and spectroscopic analysis. The work is important because it greatly enhances our understanding of the mechanisms of HCN channel regulation in a tissue-specific manner and highlights a functional role for more disordered regions that have yet to be structurally resolved.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. High-throughput tracking enables systematic phenotyping and drug repurposing in C. elegans disease models

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Thomas J O'Brien
   2. Ida L Barlow
   3. Luigi Feriani
   4. André EX Brown

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides proof of principle that C. elegans models can be used to accelerate the discovery of candidate treatments for human Mendelian diseases by detailed high-throughput phenotyping of strains harboring mutations in orthologs of human disease genes. The data are compelling and support an approach that enables the potential rapid repurposing of FDA-approved drugs to treat rare diseases for which there are currently no effective treatments. The work will be of interest to all geneticists.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

4. The trunk replaces the longer mandible as the main feeding organ in elephant evolution

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Chunxiao Li
   2. Tao Deng
   3. Yang Wang
   4. Fajun Sun
   5. Burt Wolff
   6. Qigao Jiangzuo
   7. Jiao Ma
   8. Luda Xing
   9. Jiao Fu
   10. Ji Zhang
   11. Shiqi Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents fundamental findings on the evolution of extremely elongated mandibular symphysis and tusks in longirostrine gomphotheres from the Early and Middle Miocene of northern China. The integration of multiple methods provides compelling results in the eco-morphology, behavioral ecology, and co-evolutionary biology of these taxa. In doing so, the authors elucidate the diversification of fossil proboscideans and their likely evolutionary responses to late Cenozoic global climatic changes.

   Reviewed by eLife, PREreview

5. Intramolecular feedback regulation of the LRRK2 Roc G domain by a LRRK2 kinase-dependent mechanism

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Bernd K Gilsbach
   2. Franz Y Ho
   3. Benjamin Riebenbauer
   4. Xiaojuan Zhang
   5. Giambattista Guaitoli
   6. Arjan Kortholt
   7. Christian Johannes Gloeckner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable manuscript reports on the relationship between GTP hydrolysis parameters and kinase activity of LRRK2, which is associated with Parkinson's disease. The authors provide a detailed accounting of the catalytic efficiency of the ROC GTPase domain of pathogenic variants of LRRK2, in comparison with the wild-type enzyme. The authors propose that phosphorylation of T1343 inhibits kinase activity and influences monomer-dimer transitions, but the experimental evidence is currently incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Universal length fluctuations of actin structures found in cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Aldric Rosario
   2. Shane G. McInally
   3. Predrag R. Jelenkovic
   4. Bruce L. Goode
   5. Jane Kondev

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is a theoretical analysis that gives compelling evidence that length control of bundles of actin filaments undergoing assembly and disassembly emerges even in the absence of a length control mechanism at the individual filament level. Furthermore, the length distribution should exhibit a variance that grows quadratically with the average bundle length. The experimental data are compatible with these fundamental theoretical findings, but further investigations are necessary to make the work conclusive concerning the validity of the inferences for filamentous actin structures in cells.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A translation proofreader of archaeal origin imparts multi-aldehyde stress tolerance to land plants

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Pradeep Kumar
   2. Ankit Roy
   3. Shivapura Jagadeesha Mukul
   4. Avinash Kumar Singh
   5. Dipesh Kumar Singh
   6. Aswan Nalli
   7. Pujaita Banerjee
   8. Kandhalu Sagadevan Dinesh Babu
   9. Bakthisaran Raman
   10. Shobha P Kruparani
   11. Imran Siddiqi
   12. Rajan Sankaranarayanan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The work is a fundamental contribution towards understanding the role of archaeal and plant D-aminoacyl-tRNA deacylase 2 (DTD2) in deacylation and detoxification of D-Tyr-tRNATyr modified by various aldehydes produced as metabolic byproducts in plants. It integrates convincing results from both in vitro and in vivo experiments to address the long-standing puzzle of why plants outperform bacteria in handling reactive aldehydes and suggests a new strategy for stress-tolerant crops. A limitation of the study is the lack of evidence for accumulation of toxic D-aminoacyl tRNAs and impairment of translation in plant cells lacking DTD2.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Structural dynamics of the active HER4 and HER2/HER4 complexes is finely tuned by different growth factors and glycosylation

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Raphael Trenker
   2. Devan Diwanji
   3. Tanner Bingham
   4. Kliment A Verba
   5. Natalia Jura

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript describes structures of HER4 homo- and HER4/HER2 hetero-dimer complexes using single particle cryo-EM. This important work describes convincingly new structural details of these complexes that expand our understanding of their function. This work will be of interest to researchers working on cell surface signalling and kinase activity.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Wide transition-state ensemble as key component for enzyme catalysis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Gabriel E Jara
   2. Francesco Pontiggia
   3. Renee Otten
   4. Roman V Agafonov
   5. Marcelo A Martí
   6. Dorothee Kern

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this potentially important study, the authors report results of QM/MM simulations and kinetic measurements for the phosphoryl-transfer step in adenylate kinase. The results point to the mechanistic proposal that the transition state ensemble is broader in the most efficient form of the enzyme (i.e., in the presence of Mg2+ in the active site) and thus a different activation entropy. With a broad set of computations and experimental analyses, the level of evidence is considered solid by some reviewers. On the other hand, there remain limitations in the computational analyses, especially regarding free energy profiles using different methodologies (shape of free energy profiles with DFTB vs. PBE QM/MM, and barriers with steered MD and umbrella sampling) and the activation entropy, leading some reviewers to the evaluation that the level of evidence is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A novel imaging method (FIM-ID) reveals that myofibrillogenesis plays a major role in the mechanically induced growth of skeletal muscle

    This article has 11 authors:

    1. Kent W Jorgenson
    2. Jamie E Hibbert
    3. Ramy KA Sayed
    4. Anthony N Lange
    5. Joshua S Godwin
    6. Paulo HC Mesquita
    7. Bradley A Ruple
    8. Mason C McIntosh
    9. Andreas N Kavazis
    10. Michael D Roberts
    11. Troy A Hornberger

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      The work by Hornberger and team presents a novel workflow for the visualisation of myofibrils with high resolution and contrast that will be highly valued by the scientific community. The methods include solid validation of both sample preparation and analysis, and have been used to make the fundamental discovery of myofibrillogenesis as the mechanism of mechanical loading-induced growth. Whether this mechanism is present in other settings of muscle growth (i.e., non-loading), other striated tissue (e.g myocardium), or is sex-dependent, will require future experiments.

    Reviewed by eLife