eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Metabolic activity organizes olfactory representations

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Wesley W Qian
   2. Jennifer N Wei
   3. Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling
   4. Brian K Lee
   5. Yunan Luo
   6. Marnix Vlot
   7. Koen Dechering
   8. Jian Peng
   9. Richard C Gerkin
   10. Alexander B Wiltschko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study that asks why odors smell similar even though their chemical structures appear quite different. The authors use machine-learning to make a compelling case to map the odor-relatedness of compounds to their place in metabolic pathways and propose that this is a general feature of odor perception across the animal kingdom. The conclusions could be strengthened by considering published physiological data.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Antigenic mapping and functional characterization of human New World hantavirus neutralizing antibodies

   This article has 22 authors:

   1. Taylor B Engdahl
   2. Elad Binshtein
   3. Rebecca L Brocato
   4. Natalia A Kuzmina
   5. Lucia M Principe
   6. Steven A Kwilas
   7. Robert K Kim
   8. Nathaniel S Chapman
   9. Monique S Porter
   10. Pablo Guardado-Calvo
   11. Félix A Rey
   12. Laura S Handal
   13. Summer M Diaz
   14. Irene A Zagol-Ikapitte
   15. Minh H Tran
   16. W Hayes McDonald
   17. Jens Meiler
   18. Joseph X Reidy
   19. Andrew Trivette
   20. Alexander Bukreyev
   21. Jay W Hooper
   22. James E Crowe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Antibodies perform a critical function in host defense against viruses and have emerged as major therapeutic tools in modern medicine, as evidenced by the large scale use antibody-based therapies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the characterization of human antibodies to hantaviruses that have the potential to create devastating epidemics. The results teach us about the viral structures that are targets for neutralization and the results are relevant for vaccine development and antibody therapeutic design.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cholinergic and noradrenergic axonal activity contains a behavioral-state signal that is coordinated across the dorsal cortex

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Lindsay Collins
   2. John Francis
   3. Brett Emanuel
   4. David A McCormick

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study uses behavioral monitoring and cutting-edge calcium imaging approaches to track the activity of cholinergic and noradrenergic axons in cortex of head-fixed mice, and correlate activity with behavioral state. While the evidence that behaviorally related signals are broadly broadcasted to the dorsal cortex is clear from the data, the conclusion that there is also heterogeneity across axons and areas is of less certain significance and might be undermined by methodological artifacts.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Pigment cell progenitor heterogeneity and reiteration of developmental signaling underlie melanocyte regeneration in zebrafish

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. William Tyler Frantz
   2. Sharanya Iyengar
   3. James Neiswender
   4. Alyssa Cousineau
   5. René Maehr
   6. Craig J Ceol

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this work Frantz et al. assess transcriptomic states of melanocyte stem cells that are recruited to differentiate during the process of melanocyte regeneration in zebrafish and they analyze roles for Kit signaling in this process. The analyses are nicely done, and the paper requires only relatively minor modifications and clarifications. The study will provide new insights into melanocyte stem cell biology that should be of interest to those studying pigmentation, regeneration, and melanoma biology using zebrafish and other systems.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. RNA Polymerase II transcription independent of TBP in murine embryonic stem cells

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. James ZJ Kwan
   2. Thomas F Nguyen
   3. Anuli C Uzozie
   4. Marek A Budzynski
   5. Jieying Cui
   6. Joseph MC Lee
   7. Filip Van Petegem
   8. Philipp F Lange
   9. Sheila S Teves

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study employs auxin-induced degradation to show that the TATA-binding protein (TBP) is not required for ongoing RNA polymerase II transcription nor heat-shock or retinoic acid-induced transcription, but that TBP is essential for RNA polymerase III transcription, with TBP-independent TFIID complexes being assembled and present at the transcription start sites of polymerase II-transcribed promoters. The evidence for the major claims is currently incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Interrogating the precancerous evolution of pathway dysfunction in lung squamous cell carcinoma using XTABLE

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Matthew Roberts
   2. Julia Ogden
   3. AS Mukarram Hossain
   4. Anshuman Chaturvedi
   5. Alastair RW Kerr
   6. Caroline Dive
   7. Jennifer Ellen Beane
   8. Carlos Lopez-Garcia

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors have developed a useful and user-friendly software to analyse gene expression data from four datasets representing premalignant lung lesions. This software would be of interest to those working in lung cancer and specifically the pre-malignant space. The major strength is the ease of use while the major limitation is the inability for the user to integrate other datasets.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Shear and hydrostatic stress regulate fetal heart valve remodeling through YAP-mediated mechanotransduction

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Mingkun Wang
   2. Belle Yanyu Lin
   3. Shuofei Sun
   4. Charles Dai
   5. Feifei Long
   6. Jonathan T Butcher

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Determination of the biomechanical forces and downstream pathways that direct heart valve morphogenesis is an important area of research. In the current study, potential functions of localized Yap signaling in cardiac valve morphogenesis were examined. However, the evidence for Yap pathway activation and localization relative to areas of the valve subject to different mechanical stresses is not convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. pYtags enable spatiotemporal measurements of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in living cells

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Payam E Farahani
   2. Xiaoyu Yang
   3. Emily V Mesev
   4. Kaylan A Fomby
   5. Ellen H Brumbaugh-Reed
   6. Caleb J Bashor
   7. Celeste M Nelson
   8. Jared E Toettcher

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is a well-explained and potentially useful study that describes the generation and use of pYtags, recombinant proteins that, if properly used, should allow spatiotemporal monitoring of the activation of different receptor tyrosine kinases in living cells. Although this study has generated new tools to evaluate receptor localization and activation in different cells, the broad concept showing that different receptor dimers generate specific stimuli, and downstream signaling pathways, is quite limited in terms of novelty. Although it is felt that the study is technologically innovative, the analysis of receptor spatial signaling is incomplete and should be improved.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Concurrent remodelling of nucleolar 60S subunit precursors by the Rea1 ATPase and Spb4 RNA helicase

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Valentin Mitterer
   2. Matthias Thoms
   3. Robert Buschauer
   4. Otto Berninghausen
   5. Ed Hurt
   6. Roland Beckmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study substantially advances our understanding of the process of ribosome maturation. The authors have purified and determined the structures of several nucleolar ribosome assembly intermediates in yeast using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The study combines genetic, biochemical, and structural analysis to provide compelling support for the conclusions the authors wish to draw. The work will be of broad interest to cell biologists, biochemists, and structural biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Context-dependent requirement of G protein coupling for Latrophilin-2 in target selection of hippocampal axons

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Daniel T Pederick
    2. Nicole A Perry-Hauser
    3. Huyan Meng
    4. Zhigang He
    5. Jonathan A Javitch
    6. Liqun Luo

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This is an intriguing study investigating the molecular mechanisms of neural circuit developmental organization. Using a defined hippocampal circuit, the authors find that ectopic expression of an adhesion G protein-receptor leads to axon mistargeting. This work defines new mechanisms of axon target specificity.

    Reviewed by eLife