eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Cellular and molecular dynamics in the lungs of neonatal and juvenile mice in response to E. coli

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Sharon A McGrath-Morrow
   2. Jarrett Venezia
   3. Roland Ndeh
   4. Nigel Michki
   5. Javier Perez
   6. Benjamin David Singer
   7. Raffaello Cimbro
   8. Mark Soloski
   9. Alan L Scott

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study examines the inflammatory and immune response to live E. coli bacterial infection in neonatal and juvenile mice. Important information is described on the roles of Class II MHC and interferon responsive genes in regulating the host response to infection. This study will inform future efforts to further elucidate the impact of bacterial infections on lung development.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Neural population dynamics of computing with synaptic modulations

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kyle Aitken
   2. Stefan Mihalas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is a valuable study showing that fast, but transient, modifications of the synaptic efficacies, alone, can support the integration of information over time. Convincing supportive evidence is provided by showing that feed-forward networks, when equipped with such short-term synaptic modulations, can successfully perform a variety of temporal integration tasks at a performance level comparable with that of recurrent networks. These results will be of interest to both neuroscientists and researchers in machine learning.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. O-GlcNAc glycosylation orchestrates fate decision and niche function of bone marrow stromal progenitors

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Zengdi Zhang
   2. Zan Huang
   3. Mohamed Awad
   4. Mohammed Elsalanty
   5. James Cray
   6. Lauren E Ball
   7. Jason C Maynard
   8. Alma L Burlingame
   9. Hu Zeng
   10. Kim C Mansky
   11. Hai-Bin Ruan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment:

     Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) can differentiate into a variety of cell types such as osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and adipocytes. The authors of this important study provide compelling and strong evidence that ablating O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) in BMSCs impairs bone formation but promotes marrow adiposity. The results show that the balance of osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation of BMSCs is controlled by reciprocal O-GlcNAc regulation of lineage-specifying transcription factors, and highlights the importance of an intracellular glycosylation process of specific proteins in bone formation and bone marrow adipocytes.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Physical basis of the cell size scaling laws

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Romain Rollin
   2. Jean-François Joanny
   3. Pierre Sens

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This theoretical work deals with the problem of homeostasis of protein density within cells, relying on the Pump and Leak model. The model makes predictions both for growing and senescent cells, which they compare to experimental data on budding yeast. The work extends previous works and makes biologically-relevant predictions, which will be of interest to both theorists and experimentalists interested in cell physiology.

   Reviewed by PREreview, eLife

5. The multi-tissue landscape of somatic mtDNA mutations indicates tissue-specific accumulation and removal in aging

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Monica Sanchez-Contreras
   2. Mariya T Sweetwyne
   3. Kristine A Tsantilas
   4. Jeremy A Whitson
   5. Matthew D Campbell
   6. Brenden F Kohrn
   7. Hyeon Jeong Kim
   8. Michael J Hipp
   9. Jeanne Fredrickson
   10. Megan M Nguyen
   11. James B Hurley
   12. David J Marcinek
   13. Peter S Rabinovitch
   14. Scott R Kennedy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The analysis of 89,000 independent somatic mtDNA mutations provides compelling evidence that allows the authors to refute the idea that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a main driver of mtDNA mutagenesis, although ROS effects may still be tissue-dependent. These are fundamental results with convincing evidence, and they should appeal to a broad audience. The discovery of transversion mutations (C>A/G>T and C>G/G>C), which previously were assumed to be almost nonexistent, will nevertheless require additional validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Affected cell types for hundreds of Mendelian diseases revealed by analysis of human and mouse single-cell data

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Idan Hekselman
   2. Assaf Vital
   3. Maya Ziv-Agam
   4. Lior Kerber
   5. Ido Yairi
   6. Esti Yeger-Lotem

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study presents analyses linking cell-types to monogenic disorders using over-expression of known disease-associated genes in single-cell data to identify 110 disease-affected cell types for 714 Mendelian diseases. Overall this important study combines multiple data analyses to quantify the connection between cell types and human disorders. While some of the analyses are compelling, updates to the method are needed to ensure that statistical inference is appropriately stringent and rigorous.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. FUS regulates RAN translation through modulating the G-quadruplex structure of GGGGCC repeat RNA in C9orf72-linked ALS/FTD

   This article has 29 authors:

   1. Yuzo Fujino
   2. Morio Ueyama
   3. Taro Ishiguro
   4. Daisaku Ozawa
   5. Hayato Ito
   6. Toshihiko Sugiki
   7. Asako Murata
   8. Akira Ishiguro
   9. Tania Gendron
   10. Kohji Mori
   11. Eiichi Tokuda
   12. Tomoya Taminato
   13. Takuya Konno
   14. Akihide Koyama
   15. Yuya Kawabe
   16. Toshihide Takeuchi
   17. Yoshiaki Furukawa
   18. Toshimichi Fujiwara
   19. Manabu Ikeda
   20. Toshiki Mizuno
   21. Hideki Mochizuki
   22. Hidehiro Mizusawa
   23. Keiji Wada
   24. Kinya Ishikawa
   25. Osamu Onodera
   26. Kazuhiko Nakatani
   27. Leonard Petrucelli
   28. Hideki Taguchi
   29. Yoshitaka Nagai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study demonstrates that the human FUS protein, which is implicated in ALS and related conditions, interacts with RNAs containing GGGGCC repeats and can regulate their translation by altering three-dimensional structures caused by these repeats. The study is carefully executed and the data provide convincing evidence for its major claims. This work will likely be of interest to researchers studying RNA binding proteins, and to those working on ALS and related diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Opto-RhoGEFs, an optimized optogenetic toolbox to reversibly control Rho GTPase activity on a global to subcellular scale, enabling precise control over vascular endothelial barrier strength

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Eike K Mahlandt
   2. Sebastián Palacios Martínez
   3. Janine JG Arts
   4. Simon Tol
   5. Jaap D van Buul
   6. Joachim Goedhart

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper presents a valuable advance in the ability to manipulate the integrity of the barrier between endothelial cells. A wide range of data are presented, offering convincing support for the effectiveness of the method. This work is likely to attract a diverse audience of both cell biologists and researchers developing tools to manipulate cell and tissue function.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. The structural basis of the multi-step allosteric activation of Aurora B kinase

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Dario Segura-Peña
   2. Oda Hovet
   3. Hemanga Gogoi
   4. Jennine Dawicki-McKenna
   5. Stine Malene Hansen Wøien
   6. Manuel Carrer
   7. Ben E Black
   8. Michele Cascella
   9. Nikolina Sekulic

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study investigates the dynamic activation mechanism of a key mitotic kinase complex, Aurora B/INCENP. The method of generating specifically phosphorylated forms of the complex is elegant, supporting a compelling biochemical analysis of how these sites synergistically activate Aurora B. However, the limitations of the molecular dynamics approach and how these models compare to previous structural studies are incompletely addressed. This work will be of interest to cell biologists and biochemists studying cell division and kinase regulation.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Selective transduction and photoinhibition of pre-Bötzinger complex neurons that project to the facial nucleus in rats affects nasofacial activity

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Mariana R Melo
    2. Alexander D Wykes
    3. Angela A Connelly
    4. Jaspreet K Bassi
    5. Shane D Cheung
    6. Stuart J McDougall
    7. Clément Menuet
    8. Ross AD Bathgate
    9. Andrew M Allen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study advances our understanding of the composition and circuit organization of the preBötzinger complex (preBötC)-the brainstem region that generates the respiratory rhythm and coordinates breathing with different motor and physiological behaviors in mammals. The reviewers agreed that the evidence supporting the conclusion that the preBötC is composed of a segregated subgroup of output neurons that modulates orofacial muscle activity is compelling and based on technically elegant, state-of-the-art combinatorial dual viral transgenic and optogenetic approaches in rats. After the cytoarchitectonic analyses are strengthened, the work will be of interest to neuroscientists and physiologists working on the neural control of breathing and other motor systems.

    Reviewed by eLife