eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Tradeoffs explain scaling, sex differences, and seasonal oscillations in the remarkable weapons of snapping shrimp (Alpheus spp.)

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Jason P Dinh
   2. SN Patek

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study on snapping shrimp morphological weaponry presents important findings on trade-offs in investment in costly weaponry traits as related to body size and reproduction. Convincing evidence is based on the collection of an exceptional number of fields samples, the inclusion of three shrimp species, and the measurement of numerous morphological and behavioral traits. The evidence shows that there are size-dependent trade-offs, where males and females differ in weapon investment, as weapons are beneficial to males but expensive for females. The findings will be of broad interest to evolutionary biologists and researchers working in the field of animal behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Axon guidance genes modulate neurotoxicity of ALS-associated UBQLN2

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Sang Hwa Kim
   2. Kye D Nichols
   3. Eric N Anderson
   4. Yining Liu
   5. Nandini Ramesh
   6. Weiyan Jia
   7. Connor J Kuerbis
   8. Mark Scalf
   9. Lloyd M Smith
   10. Udai Bhan Pandey
   11. Randal S Tibbetts

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study carried out a genetic screening of Drosophila lines expressing wild-type or ALS/FTD mutations of ubiquilin 2, and identified several suppressors and enhancers of ubiquilin 2 phenotypes. The study particularly focused on two genes involved in axon guidance pathways, unc5 and beat-1b. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although some of the presented data are unrelated to the main findings, which detracts from the focus of the work. This work will be of interest to a broad audience studying ALS/FTD and neurodegenerative diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cryo-EM reveals an unprecedented binding site for NaV1.7 inhibitors enabling rational design of potent hybrid inhibitors

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Marc Kschonsak
   2. Christine C Jao
   3. Christopher P Arthur
   4. Alexis L Rohou
   5. Philippe Bergeron
   6. Daniel F Ortwine
   7. Steven J McKerrall
   8. David H Hackos
   9. Lunbin Deng
   10. Jun Chen
   11. Tianbo Li
   12. Peter S Dragovich
   13. Matthew Volgraf
   14. Matthew R Wright
   15. Jian Payandeh
   16. Claudio Ciferri
   17. John C Tellis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study describes the structure-based design of novel hybrid inhibitors targeting a human sodium channel which is a pain target. Exceptionally strong evidence for key claims was produced with a structural biological pipeline for iterative structural determination of drugs complexed with an engineered sodium channel. This work is expected to be of interest to biophysicists, drug developers, neurobiologist, and pain researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. An optimal regulation of fluxes dictates microbial growth in and out of steady state

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Griffin Chure
   2. Jonas Cremer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study provides a synthesis of sector models for cellular resource partitioning in microbes, and shows how a simple flux balance model can quantitatively explain growth phenomena from numerous published experimental datasets. The study is overall convincing, although there are a few incomplete points regarding parameter values (justification and discussion of robustness). This work should be of interest to the microbial physiology community.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Design principles for inflammasome inhibition by pyrin-only-proteins

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Shuai Wu
   2. Archit Garg
   3. Zachary Mazanek
   4. Gretchen Belotte
   5. Jeffery J Zhou
   6. Christina M Stallings
   7. Jacob Lueck
   8. Aubrey Roland
   9. Michael A Chattergoon
   10. Jungsan Sohn

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this useful and potentially important manuscript, Mazanek and colleagues combine computational analysis and in vitro experiments to develop a comprehensive analysis of the ability of pyrin-only proteins (POPs) to inhibit inflammasome assembly. The results lead the authors to propose that a mixture of favorable and unfavorable interaction surfaces is required for a POP to inhibit a given inflammasome component. The results presented are solid, but additional experimentation is required to fully justify the authors' model.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Activity regulates a cell type-specific mitochondrial phenotype in zebrafish lateral line hair cells

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Andrea McQuate
   2. Sharmon Knecht
   3. David W Raible

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Mutations in mitochondrial genes can lead to deafness but the mitochondrial biology of sensory hair cells is not well understood. In this study, high-resolution imaging of mitochondrial development in sensory hair cells of normal and mutant zebrafish lateral line systems was described. The authors provide evidence that the formation of the mitochondrial architecture requires normal hair cell activity. This paper is of potential interest to researchers interested in metabolic homeostasis and sensory hair cell biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Cryo-plasma FIB/SEM volume imaging of biological specimens

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Maud Dumoux
   2. Thomas Glen
   3. Jake LR Smith
   4. Elaine ML Ho
   5. Luis MA Perdigão
   6. Avery Pennington
   7. Sven Klumpe
   8. Neville BY Yee
   9. David Andrew Farmer
   10. Pui YA Lai
   11. William Bowles
   12. Ron Kelley
   13. Jürgen M Plitzko
   14. Liang Wu
   15. Mark Basham
   16. Daniel K Clare
   17. C Alistair Siebert
   18. Michele C Darrow
   19. James H Naismith
   20. Michael Grange

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work presented is of interest to the electron microscopy community, which expanding to more and more cell biologists. The field has long searched for a suitable method to combine the pristine preservation of vitrified samples with a volumetric imaging modality that reveals subcellular architecture at sufficient contrast for ultrastructural analyses, and the authors describe here the use of novel ion beams for imaging cellular samples in three dimensions, concluding that one of the four plasma sources tested produces the highest quality images. This allows them to provide several recommendations for imaging along with software for improving collected images. This approach should be very useful for addressing many biological questions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The long noncoding RNA Charme supervises cardiomyocyte maturation by controlling cell differentiation programs in the developing heart

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Valeria Taliani
   2. Giulia Buonaiuto
   3. Fabio Desideri
   4. Adriano Setti
   5. Tiziana Santini
   6. Silvia Galfrè
   7. Leonardo Schirone
   8. Davide Mariani
   9. Giacomo Frati
   10. Valentina Valenti
   11. Sebastiano Sciarretta
   12. Emerald Perlas
   13. Carmine Nicoletti
   14. Antonio Musarò
   15. Monica Ballarino

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript reports important and valuable new data about the intriguing role of the lncRNA Charme during cardiac development. Whilst the majority of claims are convincingly supported by the data, the evidence for the cardiac phenotype and the mechanism by which Charme/MATR3 interacts is currently incomplete and requires additional experimental support. This paper is of general interest to cardiac developmental biologists as well as to anyone studying non-coding RNAs.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Plasmodium falciparum adapts its investment into replication versus transmission according to the host environment

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Abdirahman I Abdi
   2. Fiona Achcar
   3. Lauriane Sollelis
   4. João Luiz Silva-Filho
   5. Kioko Mwikali
   6. Michelle Muthui
   7. Shaban Mwangi
   8. Hannah W Kimingi
   9. Benedict Orindi
   10. Cheryl Andisi Kivisi
   11. Manon Alkema
   12. Amrita Chandrasekar
   13. Peter C Bull
   14. Philip Bejon
   15. Katarzyna Modrzynska
   16. Teun Bousema
   17. Matthias Marti

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable work provides insight into how Plasmodium falciparum optimises the balance between infection of the human host and investment in onward transmission to the mosquito. Based on the appropriate and validated methodology most of the results are convincing, nonetheless, some conclusions are incomplete and require further support.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The lingering effects of Neanderthal introgression on human complex traits

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Xinzhu Wei
    2. Christopher R Robles
    3. Ali Pazokitoroudi
    4. Andrea Ganna
    5. Alexander Gusev
    6. Arun Durvasula
    7. Steven Gazal
    8. Po-Ru Loh
    9. David Reich
    10. Sriram Sankararaman

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      A small proportion of the genomes of humans whose ancestors lived outside Africa traces back to an interbreeding event with Neanderthals. While we know that selection has generally acted to remove Neanderthal ancestry, intense interest has focused on understanding the contribution to current human phenotypic variation. This paper uses a new set of approaches to carefully quantify this contribution, taking into account various complicating factors. The work will be of interest to colleagues in human evolution and evolutionary biology more generally.

    Reviewed by eLife