eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The differentiation and integration of the hippocampal dorsoventral axis are controlled by two nuclear receptor genes

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Xiong Yang
   2. Rong Wan
   3. Zhiwen Liu
   4. Su Feng
   5. Jiaxin Yang
   6. Naihe Jing
   7. Ke Tang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study demonstrating distinct roles for the nuclear receptor genes COUP-TFI and COUP-TFII in hippocampal development. The strength of evidence is compelling, using rigorous state-of-the-art methods to demonstrate functional redundancy of these genes in regulating the Lhx2/Lhx5 axis. The major strengths of the study are the dramatic morphogenic phenotypes, and the resultant altered gene networks. These findings have theoretical or practical implications beyond a single field, and will be of interest to geneticists, developmental neurobiologists and chromatin biologists among others.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Different rules for binocular combination of luminance flicker in cortical and subcortical pathways

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Federico G Segala
   2. Aurelio Bruno
   3. Joel T Martin
   4. Myat T Aung
   5. Alex R Wade
   6. Daniel H Baker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides potentially important, new insights about the combination of information from the two eyes in humans. The data includes frequency tagging of each eye's inputs and measures reflecting both cortical (EEG) and sub-cortical processes (pupillometry). The strength of supporting evidence is solid, suggesting that temporal modulations are combined differently than spatial modulations, with additional differences between subcortical and cortical pathways. However, questions remain as to exactly how information is combined, how the findings relate to the extant literature and more broadly, to the interests of vision scientists at large.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The zebrafish mutant dreammist implicates sodium homeostasis in sleep regulation

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ida L Barlow
   2. Eirinn Mackay
   3. Emily Wheater
   4. Aimee Goel
   5. Sumi Lim
   6. Steve Zimmerman
   7. Ian Woods
   8. David A Prober
   9. Jason Rihel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment:

     This study offers new fundamental information on a role for the sodium/potassium pump in sleep regulation. Elegant methods were used to provide compelling evidence supporting the claim. The work will be of interest to sleep researchers in zebrafish as well as in other species for future investigation.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Age-related differences in the functional topography of the locus coeruleus and their implications for cognitive and affective functions

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Dániel Veréb
   2. Mite Mijalkov
   3. Anna Canal-Garcia
   4. Yu-Wei Chang
   5. Emiliano Gomez-Ruiz
   6. Blanca Zufiria Gerboles
   7. Miia Kivipelto
   8. Per Svenningsson
   9. Henrik Zetterberg
   10. Giovanni Volpe
   11. Matthew Betts
   12. Heidi IL Jacobs
   13. Joana B Pereira

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides fundamental imaging evidence from two independent functional imaging datasets, for a rostral-caudal gradient of locus coeruleus connectivity, which changes across the lifespan. The gradient approach is well-established and convincing results were obtained and validated using large 3T and 7T fMRI datasets. This work will be of interest to clinical and cognitive neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Dorsolateral prefrontal activity supports a cognitive space organization of cognitive control

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Guochun Yang
   2. Haiyan Wu
   3. Qi Li
   4. Xun Liu
   5. Zhongzheng Fu
   6. Jiefeng Jiang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Yang et al. investigate whether distinct sources of conflict are represented in a common cognitive space. The study uses an interesting task that mixes different sources of difficulty and reports that the brain appears to represent these sources as a mixture on a continuum in prefrontal areas. While the findings could be valuable to theory in this area, there are some concerns with the design and results, that raise uncertainty regarding the main conclusion of a shared cognitive space. The authors appropriately acknowledge these limitations while also highlighting the valid contributions that the study makes. Thus, while solid evidence is reported here, consistent with the central hypothesis, further experiments are required to support the strictest interpretation.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Imaging microglia surveillance during sleep-wake cycles in freely behaving mice

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Xiaochun Gu
   2. Zhong Zhao
   3. Xueli Chen
   4. Lifeng Zhang
   5. Huaqiang Fang
   6. Ting Zhao
   7. Shenghong Ju
   8. Weizheng Gao
   9. Xiaoyu Qian
   10. Xianhua Wang
   11. Jue Zhang
   12. Heping Cheng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study uses cutting-edge miniature two-photon microscopy to follow the structural dynamics of microglia in the somatosensory cortex of freely-moving mice across the sleep/wake cycle. Solid evidence revealed the brain-state-dependent regulation of microglial activity, highlighting alterations in microglial morphology during REM and NREM sleep phases compared to wakefulness. Furthermore, this study provides evidence for a critical role of norepinephrine from the locus coeruleus as a modulator of microglial morphology through the β2-adrenergic receptor (b2AR). Overall, the article is an impressive technical feat to bridge a crucial gap in understanding sleep state-induced dynamics of microglia and its modulation by norepinephrine signaling.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Vitamin D induces SIRT1 activation through K610 deacetylation in colon cancer

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. José Manuel García-Martínez
   2. Ana Chocarro-Calvo
   3. Javier Martínez-Useros
   4. María Jesús Fernández-Aceñero
   5. M Carmen Fiuza
   6. José Cáceres-Rentero
   7. Antonio De la Vieja
   8. Antonio Barbáchano
   9. Alberto Muñoz
   10. María Jesús Larriba
   11. Custodia García-Jiménez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study demonstrates that vitamin D-bound VDR increased the expression of SIRT1 and that vitamin D-bound VDR interacts with SIRT1 to cause auto-deacetylation on Lys610 and activation of SIRT1 catalytic activity. This is an important finding that is relevant to the actions of VDR on colorectal cancer. The data presented to support the presented conclusion are convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. A positive feedback loop between ZEB2 and ACSL4 regulates lipid metabolism to promote breast cancer metastasis

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Jiamin Lin
   2. Pingping Zhang
   3. Wei Liu
   4. Guorong Liu
   5. Juan Zhang
   6. Min Yan
   7. Yuyou Duan
   8. Na Yang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides a valuable finding on the mechanistic connections between epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and lipid metabolism. The authors identified the ZEB2/ACSL4 axis as a newly discovered metastatic metabolic pathway that promotes both lipogenesis and fatty acid oxidation. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The work will be of interest to medical biologists working on cancer.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Antipsychotic drugs selectively decorrelate long-range interactions in deep cortical layers

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Matthias Heindorf
   2. Georg B Keller

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study uses calcium imaging in mice to advance our understanding of the effect of antipsychotic drugs on neural functioning. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, and this work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on visual processing and psychosis researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Improved isolation of extracellular vesicles by removal of both free proteins and lipoproteins

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Dmitry Ter-Ovanesyan
    2. Tal Gilboa
    3. Bogdan Budnik
    4. Adele Nikitina
    5. Sara Whiteman
    6. Roey Lazarovits
    7. Wendy Trieu
    8. David Kalish
    9. George M Church
    10. David R Walt

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This study will be of interest and valuable to scientists of many different subareas in the study of eukaryotic extracellular vesicles. The authors' efforts to improve the way we analyze EVs are highly appreciated and their results are convincing: they not only used appropriate and validated methodologies in line with current state-of-the-art but also presented alternatives to improve these approaches.

    Reviewed by eLife