eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The intricate relationship of G-Quadruplexes and bacterial pathogenicity islands

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Bo Lyu
   2. Qisheng Song

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study explores the relationship between guanine-quadruplex structures and pathogenicity islands in 89 bacterial strains representing a range of pathogens. Guanine-quadruplex structures were found to be non-randomly distributed within pathogenicity islands and conserved within the same strains. These compelling findings shed light on the molecular mechanisms of Guanine-quadruplex structure-pathogenicity island interactions and will be of interest to all microbiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Natural forgetting reversibly modulates engram expression

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. James D O'Leary
   2. Rasmus Bruckner
   3. Livia Autore
   4. Tomás J Ryan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important paper on the role of engrams and relevant conditions that influence memory and forgetting. The variety of methods used, namely, behavioural, labeling, interrogation, immunohistochemistry, microscopy, pharmacology, computational, are exemplary and provide convincing evidence for the role of engrams in the dentate gyrus in memory retrieval and forgetting. This examination will be of interest broadly across behavioural and neural science communities.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cholecystokinin facilitates motor skill learning by modulating neuroplasticity in the motor cortex

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Hao Li
   2. Jingyu Feng
   3. Mengying Chen
   4. Min Xin
   5. Xi Chen
   6. Wenhao Liu
   7. Liping Wang
   8. Kuan Hong Wang
   9. Jufang He

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable paper examines the link between the neuropeptide cholecystokinin (CCK) and motor learning and neural plasticity in the motor cortex. While CCK was known to be involved in neural plasticity in other brain regions and behavioral contexts, this study is the first to provide evidence that CCK manipulation causes deficits in motor learning. However, the evidence for specific effects regarding behavior, activity, and pathways is currently incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Pharmacologic hyperstabilisation of the HIV-1 capsid lattice induces capsid failure

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. KM Rifat Faysal
   2. James C Walsh
   3. Nadine Renner
   4. Chantal L Márquez
   5. Vaibhav B Shah
   6. Andrew J Tuckwell
   7. Michelle P Christie
   8. Michael W Parker
   9. Stuart G Turville
   10. Greg J Towers
   11. Leo C James
   12. David A Jacques
   13. Till Böcking

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important study, the authors propose that lenacapavir inhibits HIV-1 replication by inducing "lethal hyperstabilization" of the capsid, based on experiments that clearly demonstrate such an effect at high drug concentrations. Data supporting the model are incomplete at low drug concentrations, and a firm correlation between the in vitro effects and therapeutic mechanism of action has not yet been established.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Analysis of SMAD1/5 target genes in a sea anemone reveals ZSWIM4-6 as a novel BMP signaling modulator

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Paul Knabl
   2. Alexandra Schauer
   3. Autumn P Pomreinke
   4. Bob Zimmermann
   5. Katherine W Rogers
   6. Daniel Čapek
   7. Patrick Müller
   8. Grigory Genikhovich

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work presents a systematic survey of downstream target genes of the BMP pathway during body-axis establishment of the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis. BMP is a well-known developmental regulator, and this work identifies a previously unknown array of downstream targets. Combining genomic approaches and genetic manipulations, the authors present convincing evidence that Zswim4-6 acts as a negative feedback regulator of BMP activity in Nematostella. The authors also test a zebrafish homologue in over-expression assays and show solid evidence that it too dampens BMP signaling activity, leading to the suggestion that zswim4-6 is a conserved regulator of BMP signaling. This work will be of interest to researchers in the fields of both developmental biology and evo-devo.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Nucleosome conformation dictates the histone code

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Matthew R Marunde
   2. Harrison A Fuchs
   3. Jonathan M Burg
   4. Irina K Popova
   5. Anup Vaidya
   6. Nathan W Hall
   7. Ellen N Weinzapfel
   8. Matthew J Meiners
   9. Rachel Watson
   10. Zachary B Gillespie
   11. Hailey F Taylor
   12. Laylo Mukhsinova
   13. Ugochi C Onuoha
   14. Sarah A Howard
   15. Katherine Novitzky
   16. Eileen T McAnarney
   17. Krzysztof Krajewski
   18. Martis W Cowles
   19. Marcus A Cheek
   20. Zu-Wen Sun
   21. Bryan J Venters
   22. Michael-C Keogh
   23. Catherine A Musselman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript investigates how the tandem reader domains in BPTF co-recognize two types of modifications present on histone tails, H3K4me3 and H3 acetylation. The authors interpret their results in the context of the conformational restriction of histone tails due to interactions with nucleosomal DNA. The findings contribute new insights into how the nucleosomal context regulates the recognition of multiple histone modifications by tandem reader domains and should be of interest to the broader chromatin field.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Serial attentional resource allocation during parallel feature value tracking

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Christian Merkel
   2. Luise Burgmann
   3. Mandy Viktoria Bartsch
   4. Mircea Ariel Schoenfeld
   5. Jens-Max Hopf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents an important finding on the serial attentional resource allocation during parallel feature value tracking. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although further clarification for high-/low-precision assigning, task effectivity of active tracking, and data analysis would have strengthened the study. The work will be of broad interest to psychology and cognitive science.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Ferredoxin 1 is essential for embryonic development and lipid homeostasis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Shakur Mohibi
   2. Yanhong Zhang
   3. Vivian Perng
   4. Mingyi Chen
   5. Jin Zhang
   6. Xinbin Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The findings provided by Mohibi et al. are important to the field of lipid metabolism and cancer and provide insight for an in vivo role of FDX1. The evidence is solid, utilizing multiple modalities and both in vitro and in vivo lines of investigation.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Core PCP mutations affect short time mechanical properties but not tissue morphogenesis in the Drosophila pupal wing

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Romina Piscitello-Gómez
   2. Franz S Gruber
   3. Abhijeet Krishna
   4. Charlie Duclut
   5. Carl D Modes
   6. Marko Popović
   7. Frank Jülicher
   8. Natalie A Dye
   9. Suzanne Eaton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study provides a combination of experiment and theory to investigate the role of a key signalling pathway as a patterning guide for local and global mechanical properties in a developing tissue. It poses solid evidence that local dynamical effects are not necessarily predictive of global tissue mechanics, although it does not offer an alternative mechanistic explanation. This multidisciplinary work will likely have an impact on the fields of tissue mechanics and developmental biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Glycan-shielded homodimer structure and dynamical features of the canine distemper virus hemagglutinin relevant for viral entry and efficient vaccination

    This article has 19 authors:

    1. Hideo Fukuhara
    2. Kohei Yumoto
    3. Miyuki Sako
    4. Mizuho Kajikawa
    5. Toyoyuki Ose
    6. Mihiro Kawamura
    7. Mei Yoda
    8. Surui Chen
    9. Yuri Ito
    10. Shin Takeda
    11. Mwila Mwaba
    12. Jiaqi Wang
    13. Takao Hashiguchi
    14. Jun Kamishikiryo
    15. Nobuo Maita
    16. Chihiro Kitatsuji
    17. Makoto Takeda
    18. Kimiko Kuroki
    19. Katsumi Maenaka

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      The manuscript presents valuable findings, using solid techniques and approaches, that shed additional light into how the canine distemper virus (CDV) hemagglutinin might engage cellular receptors and how that engagement impacts host tropism. The structural data and their analysis were thorough and well-presented. The HS-AFM data, which indicate that homodimers may dissociate into monomers - and thus have significant implications for the model of fusion triggering - are very exciting, but require further validation, perhaps by alternate approaches, to bolster the current molecular model of the CDV fusion triggering.

    Reviewed by eLife