eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Tiered sympathetic control of cardiac function revealed by viral tracing and single cell transcriptome profiling

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Sachin Sharma
   2. Russell Littman
   3. John D Tompkins
   4. Douglas Arneson
   5. Jaime Contreras
   6. Al-Hassan Dajani
   7. Kaitlyn Ang
   8. Amit Tsanhani
   9. Xin Sun
   10. Patrick Y Jay
   11. Herbert Herzog
   12. Xia Yang
   13. Olujimi A Ajijola

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important landmark paper identifies three distinct stellate ganglion nerve cell subtypes stratifiable in terms of their neuropeptide Y expression correlating these with gene expression and electrophysiological properties. Their innovative use of viral tracing techniques compellingly established their conclusions. This major contribution to cardiac sympathetic excitation is relevant to a wide scientific and clinical audience.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Generative network modeling reveals quantitative definitions of bilateral symmetry exhibited by a whole insect brain connectome

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Benjamin D Pedigo
   2. Mike Powell
   3. Eric W Bridgeford
   4. Michael Winding
   5. Carey E Priebe
   6. Joshua T Vogelstein

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work demonstrates a significant asymmetry between the connectivity statistics of the left and right hemispheres of the Drosophila larva brain. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling and represents a first step toward the development of statistical tests for comparing pairs of connectomes more generally. This work will therefore be of interest to the broad neuroscience community.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. linc-mipep and linc-wrb encode micropeptides that regulate chromatin accessibility in vertebrate-specific neural cells

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Valerie A Tornini
   2. Liyun Miao
   3. Ho-Joon Lee
   4. Timothy Gerson
   5. Sarah E Dube
   6. Valeria Schmidt
   7. François Kroll
   8. Yin Tang
   9. Katherine Du
   10. Manik Kuchroo
   11. Charles E Vejnar
   12. Ariel Alejandro Bazzini
   13. Smita Krishnaswamy
   14. Jason Rihel
   15. Antonio J Giraldez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper will be of interest to scientists involved in understanding the function of long non-coding RNAs. The authors found two genes previously reported as lincRNAs in early studies encode micropeptides in zebrafish. Zebrafish mutants lacking these micro-peptides show altered gene regulatory networks that preferentially affect oligodendrocytes and cerebellar cells in the embryonic brain. The data presented in the study are solid and present convincing additional evidence for the versatile functions of micro-peptides.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Statistical modeling based on structured surveys of Australian native possum excreta harboring Mycobacterium ulcerans predicts Buruli ulcer occurrence in humans

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Koen Vandelannoote
   2. Andrew H Buultjens
   3. Jessica L Porter
   4. Anita Velink
   5. John R Wallace
   6. Kim R Blasdell
   7. Michael Dunn
   8. Victoria Boyd
   9. Janet AM Fyfe
   10. Ee Laine Tay
   11. Paul DR Johnson
   12. Saras M Windecker
   13. Nick Golding
   14. Timothy P Stinear

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study is an important contribution to the understanding of Buruli ulcer transmission in Australia. The authors provide compelling evidence that the carriage of Mycobacterium ulcerans by possums, within their small home range, can predict cases of Buruli ulcer disease in individuals who visit those areas. While not directly relevant to the transmission of Buruli ulcer in West and Central Africa, the work will be of great interest to those studying the transmission of opportunistic environmental pathogens.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. A ratchet-like apical constriction drives cell ingression during the mouse gastrulation EMT

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Alexandre Francou
   2. Kathryn V Anderson
   3. Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study employs live imaging to investigate the movement of mesodermal cells in early mouse embryos. By examining the dynamics of cell behavior in normal and mutant embryos, the authors propose that apical constriction of cells results from pulsed contraction guided by crumbs2 signals. The paper presents beautiful images and adds to the molecular understanding of cell migration during early development.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Longitudinal map of transcriptome changes in the Lyme pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi during tick-borne transmission

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Anne L Sapiro
   2. Beth M Hayes
   3. Regan F Volk
   4. Jenny Y Zhang
   5. Diane M Brooks
   6. Calla Martyn
   7. Atanas Radkov
   8. Ziyi Zhao
   9. Margie Kinnersley
   10. Patrick R Secor
   11. Balyn W Zaro
   12. Seemay Chou

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this Tools and Resources article, the authors overcome the challenge of low Borrelia burgdorferi numbers during infection for analyses such as RNA-sequencing or mass spectrometry. They do so by physically enriching for spirochetes, which is important, as it provides technical advances for the study of global transcriptomic changes of B. burgdorferi during tick feeding, helping to build on the knowledge already collected by the field. The evidence presented is compelling, and the strategy described here could benefit researchers in the field and possibly also support broader applications.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Identification of candidate mitochondrial inheritance determinants using the mammalian cell-free system

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Dalen Zuidema
   2. Alexis Jones
   3. Won-Hee Song
   4. Michal Zigo
   5. Peter Sutovsky

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work reports the identification of a list of proteins that may participate in the clearance of paternal mitochondria during fertilization, which is known as essential for normal fertilization and embryonic and fetal development. The main method used is state-of-the-art and the supporting data are solid. This work will be of interest to developmental and reproductive biologists working on fertilization.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Cylicins are a structural component of the sperm calyx being indispensable for male fertility in mice and human

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Simon Schneider
   2. Andjela Kovacevic
   3. Michelle Mayer
   4. Ann-Kristin Dicke
   5. Lena Arévalo
   6. Sophie A Koser
   7. Jan N Hansen
   8. Samuel Young
   9. Christoph Brenker
   10. Sabine Kliesch
   11. Dagmar Wachten
   12. Gregor Kirfel
   13. Timo Strünker
   14. Frank Tüttelmann
   15. Hubert Schorle

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into the role of two under-researched sperm-specific proteins (Cylicin 1 and Cylicin 2). The authors provide convincing evidence that they have an essential role in sperm head structure during spermatogenesis, and that their loss leads to subfertility or infertility, with a dose-dependent phenotype. Importantly, the authors identify infertile males with mutations in both Cylicin1 and Cylicin2. Thus, the findings from the mouse models might be applicable to understanding human male infertility with similar structural defects.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. An open-source platform for head-fixed operant and consummatory behavior

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Adam Gordon-Fennell
   2. Joumana M Barbakh
   3. MacKenzie T Utley
   4. Shreya Singh
   5. Paula Bazzino
   6. Raajaram Gowrishankar
   7. Michael R Bruchas
   8. Mitchell F Roitman
   9. Garret D Stuber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Gordon-Fennell et al. present a low-cost, open-source platform for measuring action elicitation and consummatory behavior in head-fixed animals. The findings are important because they allow animals to perform a truly voluntary action whilst their head is held still, and the evidence supporting them is both comprehensive and compelling (in some cases even exceptional). The results have the potential to have a broad impact in the field as many labs start to move towards measuring head-fixed behavior effectively, although this is said with the caveat that such behavior will never be an ideal replication of naturalistic behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Aggregating in vitro-grown adipocytes to produce macroscale cell-cultured fat tissue with tunable lipid compositions for food applications

    This article has 13 authors:

    1. John Se Kit Yuen Jr
    2. Michael K Saad
    3. Ning Xiang
    4. Brigid M Barrick
    5. Hailey DiCindio
    6. Chunmei Li
    7. Sabrina W Zhang
    8. Miriam Rittenberg
    9. Emily T Lew
    10. Kevin Lin Zhang
    11. Glenn Leung
    12. Jaymie A Pietropinto
    13. David L Kaplan

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This manuscript describes an approach to creating fat tissue in culture for food applications. Specifically, the efforts of growing cultivated meat focus mostly on growing skeletal muscle. However, the taste component of such artificial meat would be determined by fat content. There is a significant desire and motivation to cultivate fat tissues in vitro for the purpose of the replacement of animal products. This paper provides new technological approaches to expand adipocytes and aggregate them into structures that resemble fat.

    Reviewed by eLife