eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. EPAC1 inhibition protects the heart from doxorubicin-induced toxicity

   This article has 21 authors:

   1. Marianne Mazevet
   2. Anissa Belhadef
   3. Maxance Ribeiro
   4. Delphine Dayde
   5. Anna Llach
   6. Marion Laudette
   7. Tiphaine Belleville
   8. Philippe Mateo
   9. Mélanie Gressette
   10. Florence Lefebvre
   11. Ju Chen
   12. Christilla Bachelot-Loza
   13. Catherine Rucker-Martin
   14. Frank Lezoualch
   15. Bertrand Crozatier
   16. Jean-Pierre Benitah
   17. Marie-Catherine Vozenin
   18. Rodolphe Fischmeister
   19. Ana-Maria Gomez
   20. Christophe Lemaire
   21. Eric Morel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work substantially contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. The evidence supporting the role of EPAC1 inhibition in this context is compelling, using rigorous molecular biology techniques. The work will be of broad interest to scientists and clinicians working in the field of oncology and cardiovascular medicine.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Connectomics of the Octopus vulgaris vertical lobe provides insight into conserved and novel principles of a memory acquisition network

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Flavie Bidel
   2. Yaron Meirovitch
   3. Richard Lee Schalek
   4. Xiaotang Lu
   5. Elisa Catherine Pavarino
   6. Fuming Yang
   7. Adi Peleg
   8. Yuelong Wu
   9. Tal Shomrat
   10. Daniel Raimund Berger
   11. Adi Shaked
   12. Jeff William Lichtman
   13. Binyamin Hochner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This extraordinary study mapped the circuit architecture of a brain module for learning and memory in the octopus brain. In particular, one gyrus of the Octopus vulgaris brain vertical lobe was imaged with volume electron microscopy, its neurons reconstructed and their synapses mapped. The acquisition of this pioneering data set was followed by a very convincing analysis of the circuits supporting learning and memory, and therefore behavioral plasticity, in this animal. The data and findings establish an important point of comparison with analogous brain structures in other organisms, such as the vertebrate cerebellum and the arthropod mushroom body, offering a new neural circuit architecture to support the study of behavior and inspire the design of artificial neural networks.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Structural screens identify candidate human homologs of insect chemoreceptors and cryptic Drosophila gustatory receptor-like proteins

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Richard Benton
   2. Nathaniel J Himmel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Overall, this manuscript provides fundamental advances to our understanding of the ancestry of insect gustatory and olfactory receptors, by identifying new members of these two related ion channel families in distant species. The approaches to compare protein structure are exceptional and use cutting-edge techniques, going beyond the commonly used approaches. The authors suggest that the family of odorant and gustatory receptors have a common origin and share structural homology in very distant organisms, although the possibility of convergent evolution still exists. This work will serve as a reference for scientists working on insect olfaction and for those working on molecular evolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Domestication and lowland adaptation of coastal preceramic maize from Paredones, Peru

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Miguel Vallebueno-Estrada
   2. Guillermo G Hernández-Robles
   3. Eduardo González-Orozco
   4. Ivan Lopez-Valdivia
   5. Teresa Rosales Tham
   6. Víctor Vásquez Sánchez
   7. Kelly Swarts
   8. Tom D Dillehay
   9. Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada
   10. Rafael Montiel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important article, the authors characterize ancient DNA from maize unearthed in archaeological contexts from Paredones and Huaca Prieta in the Chicama river valley of Peru, recovered by painstakingly controlled excavation. The genetic evidence is compelling, albeit from a small sample size, but the dating evidence, despite the excellent archaeological context, is inadequate. Since the age of the samples is so important for the inferences, the individual radiocarbon determinations should be subject to further scrutiny.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Cortico-thalamo-cortical interactions modulate electrically evoked EEG responses in mice

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Leslie D Claar
   2. Irene Rembado
   3. Jacqulyn R Kuyat
   4. Simone Russo
   5. Lydia C Marks
   6. Shawn R Olsen
   7. Christof Koch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study makes a fundamental observation about the role of activity in the mouse thalamus on scalp recorded voltage fluctuations. The novel approach and sophisticated analysis of neural signals provides compelling support for the authors' observations. This work will likely be of broad interest to neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Analysis of science journalism reveals gender and regional disparities in coverage

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Natalie R Davidson
   2. Casey S Greene

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important bibliometric analysis shows that authors of scientific papers whose names suggest they are female or East Asian get quoted less often in news stories about their work. While caveats are inevitable in this type of study, the evidence for the authors' claims is convincing, with a rigorous, and importantly, reproducible analysis of over 20,000 articles from across 15 years. This paper will be of interest to science journalists and to researchers who study science communication.

   Reviewed by eLife, preLights

7. Competition between myosin II and βH-spectrin regulates cytoskeletal tension

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Consuelo Ibar
   2. Krishna Chinthalapudi
   3. Sarah M Heissler
   4. Kenneth D Irvine

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript provides valuable insights into the regulatory role and mechanisms of the spectrin cytoskeleton in mechanotransduction in Drosophila. The data are compelling in establishing that alpha and beta spectrin regulate the Hippo signaling pathway independently via their effect on cytoskeletal tension. The work will be of interest to cell and developmental biologists, particularly those who focus on mechanotransduction and the cytoskeleton.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The gene expression landscape of the human locus coeruleus revealed by single-nucleus and spatially-resolved transcriptomics

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Lukas M Weber
   2. Heena R Divecha
   3. Matthew N Tran
   4. Sang Ho Kwon
   5. Abby Spangler
   6. Kelsey D Montgomery
   7. Madhavi Tippani
   8. Rahul Bharadwaj
   9. Joel E Kleinman
   10. Stephanie C Page
   11. Thomas M Hyde
   12. Leonardo Collado-Torres
   13. Kristen R Maynard
   14. Keri Martinowich
   15. Stephanie C Hicks

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important initial study of cell type and spatially resolved gene expression in and around the locus coeruleus, the primary source of the neuromodulator norepinephrine in the human brain. The data are generated with cutting-edge techniques, and the work lays the foundation for future descriptive and experimental approaches to understand the contribution of the locus coeruleus to healthy brain function and disease. The empirical support for the main conclusions is solid. This paper, and the associated web application, will be of great interest to neuroscientists working on arousal-based behaviors and neurological and neuropsychiatric phenotypes.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Integrated transcriptome and proteome analysis reveals posttranscriptional regulation of ribosomal genes in human brain organoids

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Jaydeep Sidhaye
   2. Philipp Trepte
   3. Natalie Sepke
   4. Maria Novatchkova
   5. Michael Schutzbier
   6. Gerhard Dürnberger
   7. Karl Mechtler
   8. Jürgen A Knoblich

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study integrates proteomic and transcriptomic analyses of human stem cell-derived cortical brain organoids, uncovering posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms for a specific gene module enriched in ribosomal genes. The data analysis is robust and the evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling. The work provides a valuable resource to developmental neurobiologists and highlights a new level of regulation that may be important in cortical development.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Room-temperature crystallography reveals altered binding of small-molecule fragments to PTP1B

    This article has 13 authors:

    1. Tamar Skaist Mehlman
    2. Justin T Biel
    3. Syeda Maryam Azeem
    4. Elliot R Nelson
    5. Sakib Hossain
    6. Louise Dunnett
    7. Neil G Paterson
    8. Alice Douangamath
    9. Romain Talon
    10. Danny Axford
    11. Helen Orins
    12. Frank von Delft
    13. Daniel A Keedy

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      Based on two room-temperature X-ray crystallographic screens of PTP1B phosphatase against two sets of chemical fragments, and by comparing the results from a previous cryo screen, the authors report the important observation that, in addition to overlapping but non-identical sets of hits compared to the cryo screen, the room-temperature screens lead to significant differences in terms of binding sites and poses for some of the hits. The study provides compelling support for the use of room-temperature X-ray crystallography in early-stage drug discovery and highlights that temperature should be used as a parameter in efforts to extract additional insight from such analyses.

    Reviewed by eLife