eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Zona incerta distributes a broad movement signal that modulates behavior

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Sebastian Hormigo
   2. Ji Zhou
   3. Dorian Chabbert
   4. Sarmad Sajid
   5. Natan Busel
   6. Manuel Castro-Alamancos

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study uses a range of technical approaches to investigate the responses of zona incerta neurons to movement and sensory stimuli. The majority of neurons exhibited movement related activity but only a small proportion were modulated by whisker deflections. The major conclusion of the study is that the zona incerta distributes a general motor signal. The evidence supporting this claim is solid, although the study would be improved by greater transparency and discussion of experimental methods and histological verification of recording sites, viral spread, and which territories of the zona incerta were investigated. The work will be of interest to behavioral and physiological neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. New genetic tools for mushroom body output neurons in Drosophila

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Gerald M Rubin
   2. Yoshinori Aso

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work advances on two Aso et al 2014 eLife papers to describe further resources that are valuable for the field. This paper identified and contributes additional MBON split-Gal4s, convincingly describing their anatomy, connectivity and function.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Trophic eggs affect caste determination in the ant Pogonomyrmex rugosus

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Eléonore Genzoni
   2. Tanja Schwander
   3. Laurent Keller

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important manuscript by Genzoni et al. reports the striking discovery of a regulatory role for trophic eggs in ant caste determination. Prior to this study, trophic eggs were widely assumed to play only a nutritional role in the colony, but this compelling study shows that trophic eggs can suppress queen development, and therefore regulate caste determination in specific social contexts.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Interdependence of plasma membrane nanoscale dynamics of a kinase and its cognate substrate underlies Arabidopsis response to viral infection

   This article has 22 authors:

   1. Marie-Dominique Jolivet
   2. Anne Flore Deroubaix
   3. Marie Boudsocq
   4. Nikolaj B Abel
   5. Marion Rocher
   6. Terezinha Robbe
   7. Valérie Wattelet-Boyer
   8. Jennifer Huard
   9. Dorian Lefebvre
   10. Yi-Ju Lu
   11. Brad Day
   12. Grégoire Saias
   13. Jahed Ahmed
   14. Valérie Cotelle
   15. Nathalie Giovinazzo
   16. Jean-Luc Gallois
   17. Yasuyuki Yamaji
   18. Sylvie German-Retana
   19. Julien Gronnier
   20. Thomas Ott
   21. Sébastien Mongrand
   22. Véronique Germain

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study is considered important with solid evidence that demonstrates the impact of plasma membrane nano-domains and protein interactions in the plant defence response to viruses. It includes a molecular understanding of the role of a calcium dependent kinase (CPK3) and a remorin protein in the cell-to-cell spread of viruses and cytoskeletal dynamics demonstrating, conclusively, the role of CPK3 with multiple lines of evidence. The work opens avenues to investigate different viruses and other plasma membrane proteins to gain a fuller picture of the involvement of plasmodesmata and other nanodomains in virus spreading.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. The BTB-ZF gene Bm-mamo regulates pigmentation in silkworm caterpillars

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Songyuan Wu
   2. Xiaoling Tong
   3. Chenxing Peng
   4. Jiangwen Luo
   5. Chenghao Zhang
   6. Kunpeng Lu
   7. Chunlin Li
   8. Xin Ding
   9. Xiaohui Duan
   10. Yaru Lu
   11. Hai Hu
   12. Duan Tan
   13. Fangyin Dai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study identifies the gene mamo as a new regulator of pigmentation in the silkworm Bombyx mori, a function that was previously unsuspected based on extensive work on Drosophila where the mamo gene is involved in gamete production. The evidence supporting the role of Bm-nano in pigmentation is convincing, including high-resolution linkage mapping of two mutant strains, expression profiling, and reproduction of the mutant phenotypes with state-of-the-art RNAi and CRISPR knock-out assays. The work will be of interest to evolutionary biologists and geneticists studying color patterns and evolution of gene networks.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Mitochondrial genomes of Pleistocene megafauna retrieved from recent sediment layers of two Siberian lakes

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Peter Andreas Seeber
   2. Laura Batke
   3. Yury Dvornikov
   4. Alexandra Schmidt
   5. Yi Wang
   6. Kathleen Stoof-Leichsenring
   7. Katie Moon
   8. Samuel H Vohr
   9. Beth Shapiro
   10. Laura S Epp

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work presents convincing evidence for the presence of wooly mammoth/rhinoceros ancient environmental DNA (aeDNA) far from the time likely to host living individuals: what is effectively a genetic version of a geological inclusion. These are important findings that will have ramifications for the interpretation and conclusions extracted from aeDNA more generally.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Adaptation invariant concentration discrimination in an insect olfactory system

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Doris Ling
   2. Lijun Zhang
   3. Debajit Saha
   4. Alex Bo-Yuan Chen
   5. Baranidharan Raman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses an important question in sensory neuroscience: how the olfactory system distinguishes decreases in stimulus intensity from decreases in neural responses due to adaptation. Based on a combination of electrophysiological and behavioral analyses, solid evidence establishes that neural coding changes differently between intensity reductions and adaptation, with intensity changes altering which neurons are activated while adaptation preserves the active ensemble but reduces response magnitude. Intriguingly, behavioral responses tend to increase as the neural responses decrease, suggesting that core features of the odor response persist through adaptation. While the experimental results are convincing overall, the conclusions will be strengthened by future work recording behavior and neural dynamics in the same animals.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Lactate transporter MCT1 in hepatic stellate cells promotes fibrotic collagen expression in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Kyounghee Min
   2. Batuhan Yenilmez
   3. Mark Kelly
   4. Dimas Echeverria
   5. Michael Elleby
   6. Lawrence M Lifshitz
   7. Naideline Raymond
   8. Emmanouela Tsagkaraki
   9. Shauna M Harney
   10. Chloe DiMarzio
   11. Hui Wang
   12. Nicholas McHugh
   13. Brianna Bramato
   14. Brett Morrison
   15. Jeffery D Rothstein
   16. Anastasia Khvorova
   17. Michael P Czech

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This convincing manuscript represents a valuable advance in understanding the role of MCT1 – a transporter for lactate and other organic anions – in hepatocytes and hepatic stellate cells in the liver. The authors also generate exciting new tools to investigate hepatic stellate cell biology, and these may have much broader applications, but future studies are required to validate these new tools.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Structural basis for kinase inhibition in the tripartite E. coli HipBST toxin–antitoxin system

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. René L Bærentsen
   2. Stine V Nielsen
   3. Ragnhild B Skjerning
   4. Jeppe Lyngsø
   5. Francesco Bisiak
   6. Jan Skov Pedersen
   7. Kenn Gerdes
   8. Michael A Sørensen
   9. Ditlev E Brodersen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study presents an exhaustive structural analysis of a complete tripartite HipBST toxin-antitoxin system of the Enteropathogenic E. coli O127:H6, which represents a fascinating variation on the well-studied HipAB toxin-antitoxin system. The convincing data show that major features of the canonical HipAB system have been rerouted to form the tripartite HipBST, revealing a new mode of inhibition of a toxin kinase.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Integrative analysis of DNA replication origins and ORC-/MCM-binding sites in human cells reveals a lack of overlap

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Mengxue Tian
    2. Zhenjia Wang
    3. Zhangli Su
    4. Etsuko Shibata
    5. Yoshiyuki Shibata
    6. Anindya Dutta
    7. Chongzhi Zang

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      The paper addresses the mechanism of initiation of DNA replication in human cells by analyzing published data on the location of origins of DNA replication and the location of binding sites in the genome for ORC and MCM2-7 complexes. There are some useful analyses of existing data but there are concerns regarding the conclusion that there might be alternative mechanisms for determining the location of origins of DNA replication in human cells compared to the well known mechanism known from many eukaryotic systems, including yeast, Xenopus, C. elegans and Drosophila. The lack of overlap between binding sites for ORC1 and ORC2, which are known to form a complex in human cells, is a particular concern and points to the evidence for the accurate localization of their binding sites in the genome being incomplete.

    Reviewed by eLife