eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. ROCK and the actomyosin network control biomineral growth and morphology during sea urchin skeletogenesis

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Eman Hijaze
   2. Tsvia Gildor
   3. Ronald Seidel
   4. Majed Layous
   5. Mark Winter
   6. Luca Bertinetti
   7. Yael Politi
   8. Smadar Ben-Tabou de-Leon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study addresses the role of Rho-associated coiled-coil kinase (ROCK) and the cytoskeleton in the initiation and growth of the calcified endoskeleton of sea urchin embryos. Perturbation by two independent approaches (a morpholino and a selective inhibitor) provides convincing evidence that ROCK participates both in actomyosin regulation and in the gene regulatory network that controls skeletogenesis. Exciting areas of future work will be to elucidate the mechanisms by which ROCK influences gene expression and to further dissect the role of the cytoskeleton in mineralization.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Gender differences in submission behavior exacerbate publication disparities in elite journals

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Chaoqun Ni
   2. Isabel Basson
   3. Giovanna Badia
   4. Nathalie Tufenkji
   5. Cassidy R Sugimoto
   6. Vincent Larivière

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This convincing study, which is based on a survey of researchers, finds that women are less likely than men to submit articles to elite journals. It also finds that there is no relation between gender and reported desk rejection. The study is an important contribution to work on gender bias in the scientific literature.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Episodic boundaries affect neural features of representational drift in humans

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Nimay Kulkarni
   2. Bradley C. Lega

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study presents a novel analysis of a large human intracranial electrophysiological recording dataset. The study challenges the traditional view that neural responses to word lists exhibit smoothly drifting contexts over time, showing that items just after a boundary have a characteristic response that occurs repeatedly. The evidence is incomplete, however, leaving open the possibility for alternative explanations.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Identification of ERAD-dependent degrons for the endoplasmic reticulum lumen

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Rachel Sharninghausen
   2. Jiwon Hwang
   3. Devon D Dennison
   4. Ryan D Baldridge

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study identifies a short amino acid sequence that, when fused in multimeric form to the amino termini of luminal ER proteins, initiates proteasomal degradation via the Hrd1 ER quality control ubiquitin ligase complex. The authors provide solid evidence that this sequence functions as a "degron" for ER proteins. Future work is required to obtain a more detailed view of the properties of this degron, the mechanisms underlying its recognition by ER-resident and cytoplasmic factors, and the in vivo relevance of the findings.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Identification of Novel Syncytiotrophoblast Membrane Extracellular Vesicles Derived Protein Biomarkers in Early-onset Preeclampsia: A Cross-Sectional Study

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Toluwalase Awoyemi
   2. Shuhan Jiang
   3. Bríet Bjarkadóttir
   4. Maryam Rahbar
   5. Prasanna Logenthiran
   6. Gavin Collett
   7. Wei Zhang
   8. Adam Cribbs
   9. Ana Sofia Cerdeira
   10. Manu Vatish

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable findings that could be utilized for identifying women at risk for preeclampsia before the onset of the disease. The novel aspect of this study lies in the utilization of exosomes of two different sizes. The data are solid: the methods, data, and analysis broadly support the claims. This work will be of interest to medical researchers and clinicians who work on preeclampsia and women's health.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The positioning mechanics of microtubule asters in Drosophila embryo explants

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Jorge de-Carvalho
   2. Sham Tlili
   3. Timothy E Saunders
   4. Ivo A Telley

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript utilizes a Drosophila explant system and modeling to provide important insights into the mechanism of microtubule aster positioning. Although the intellectual framework of aster positioning has been worked out by the same authors in their previous work, this study provides additional solid evidence to solidify their model.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. The Hippo kinase cascade regulates a contractile cell behavior and cell density in a close unicellular relative of animals

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Jonathan E Phillips
   2. Duojia Pan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study examines the ancestral function of Hippo pathway kinases in contractility and cell density in the ameboid organism Capsaspora owczarzaki, a unicellular animal that is a close relative of multicellular animals. There is convincing evidence for Hippo kinases regulating contractility and cell density but not proliferation in C. owczarzaki. The work complements previous work on the Hippo effector Yorkie homolog in this species, although the unavailability of extensive genetic tools in this species precludes informative epistasis experiments. The work would be of interest to evolutionary and developmental biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Automated multiconformer model building for X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Stephanie A Wankowicz
   2. Ashraya Ravikumar
   3. Shivani Sharma
   4. Blake Riley
   5. Akshay Raju
   6. Daniel W Hogan
   7. Jessica Flowers
   8. Henry van den Bedem
   9. Daniel A Keedy
   10. James S Fraser

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work describes important updates to qFit, the state-of-the art tool for modeling alternative conformations of protein molecules based on high resolution X-ray diffraction or Cryo-EM data. The authors provide some convincing analyses of qFit's performance in selected test cases. This manuscript will be of interest to structural biologists and protein biochemists, since the adoption of qFit in structural refinement may lead to new mechanistic insights into protein function.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Partitioning to ordered membrane domains regulates the kinetics of secretory traffic

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ivan Castello-Serrano
   2. Frederick A Heberle
   3. Barbara Diaz-Rohrer
   4. Rossana Ippolito
   5. Carolyn R Shurer
   6. Pablo Lujan
   7. Felix Campelo
   8. Kandice R Levental
   9. Ilya Levental

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important study, Castello-Serrano and colleagues describe, model and quantify the role of transmembrane domains in protein sorting in the secretory pathway, first at the ER and subsequently at the Golgi. Convincing data support the role of a cytoplasmic motif in ER exit, while further experiments are necessary to support a direct connection between the phase partitioning capability of the transmembrane regions and the sorting potential of domains at the Golgi/TGN.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. SUMOylation of Bonus, the Drosophila homolog of Transcription Intermediary Factor 1, safeguards germline identity by recruiting repressive chromatin complexes to silence tissue-specific genes

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Baira Godneeva
    2. Maria Ninova
    3. Katalin Fejes-Toth
    4. Alexei Aravin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study advances our knowledge of Drosophila Bonus, the sole ortholog of the mammalian transcriptional regulator Tif1. Solid evidence, both in vivo and in vitro, shows how SUMOylation controls the function of the Bonus protein and what the impact of SUMOylation on the function of Bonus protein in the ovary is.

    Reviewed by eLife