eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Development and biophysical characterization of a humanized FSH–blocking monoclonal antibody therapeutic formulated at an ultra-high concentration

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Satish Rojekar
   2. Anusha R Pallapati
   3. Judit Gimenez-Roig
   4. Funda Korkmaz
   5. Farhath Sultana
   6. Damini Sant
   7. Clement M Haeck
   8. Anne Macdonald
   9. Se-Min Kim
   10. Clifford J Rosen
   11. Orly Barak
   12. Marcia Meseck
   13. John Caminis
   14. Daria Lizneva
   15. Tony Yuen
   16. Mone Zaidi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This development of a highly concentrated and potentially clinically valuable antibody formulation for MS-Hu6, a first-in-class FSH-blocking humanized antibody is of potential translational importance in the management of osteoporosis, obesity, and Alzheimer's disease. The meticulous methodology is thorough and compelling in its range of techniques examining the stability and physiochemical properties of the formulated MS-Hu6.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Sterol derivative binding to the orthosteric site causes conformational changes in an invertebrate Cys-loop receptor

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Steven De Gieter
   2. Casey I Gallagher
   3. Eveline Wijckmans
   4. Diletta Pasini
   5. Chris Ulens
   6. Rouslan G Efremov

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable structures of a pentameric ligand-gated ion channel from a thermophilic worm that is a homologue of the well-known mammalian nicotinic receptors. Although the function of the worm receptor is unknown, the authors convincingly identify interesting features for this class of receptors including a steroid detergent that is bound in the canonical neurotransmitter site and that induces conformational changes of the extracellular domains. These observations will be of broad interest to the ligand-gated ion channel community, although it is difficult at this moment to relate these observations to channel function as the channel's activating ligand remains unknown.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Balancing true and false detection of intermittent sensory targets by adjusting the inputs to the evidence accumulation process

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Anna C Geuzebroek
   2. Hannah Craddock
   3. Redmond G O'Connell
   4. Simon P Kelly

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This research provides convincing evidence that standard behavioral modeling and EEG-derived signatures of the decision process may not agree on mechanisms underlying changes in decision strategy. The authors make a strong case for the importance of informing behavioral modeling with putative neural signatures of the corresponding decision processes. The assumptions of this neurally-informed modeling approach should be further explored and clarified to highlight not only its benefits but also potential caveats.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Task-dependent optimal representations for cerebellar learning

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Marjorie Xie
   2. Samuel P Muscinelli
   3. Kameron Decker Harris
   4. Ashok Litwin-Kumar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Models of cerebellar function and the coding of inputs in the cerebellum often assume that random stimuli are a reasonable stand-in for real stimuli. However, the important contribution of this paper is that conclusions about optimality and sparseness in these models do not generalize to potentially more realistic sets of stimuli, for example, those drawn from a low-dimensional manifold. While the mathematical modelling and analysis in the paper are convincing, one important limitation of the paper is that the neural dynamics and circuit architecture are not very specific to the cerebellum, and lack important biological detail.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Cholinergic modulation shifts the response of CA1 pyramidal cells to depolarizing ramps via TRPM4 channels with potential implications for place field firing

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Crescent L Combe
   2. Carol M Upchurch
   3. Carmen C Canavier
   4. Sonia Gasparini

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript by Combe et al. presents the role of cholinergic modulation in the spike rate adaptation in pyramidal place cells. Using combined electrophysiology, pharmacological, and multi-compartment computational modeling, the authors identify the downstream pathway (e.g. activation of TRPM4 channel) that shapes the firing pattern under the triangular-shaped ramps. The study demonstrates solid evidence, and the findings are important for bridging pyramidal neurons' molecular/channel properties to behavior-level implications (place field firing).

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Spontaneous body wall contractions stabilize the fluid microenvironment that shapes host–microbe associations

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Janna C Nawroth
   2. Christoph Giez
   3. Alexander Klimovich
   4. Eva Kanso
   5. Thomas CG Bosch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work studies the spontaneous contractions (SC) of the Hydra body wall and presents a mathematical model of nutrient transport to hypothesize the role of SC on maintaining the microbiota. The solid evidence presented yields insights on the functional implications of the SC and the increased nutrient update obtained from mixing the local fluid environment through body wall contractions. The main result represents an important observation about the role of hydrodynamics on organism behavior and its relation to diffusive chemical transport processes.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. SARS-CoV-2 uses CD4 to infect T helper lymphocytes

   This article has 76 authors:

   1. Natalia S Brunetti
   2. Gustavo G Davanzo
   3. Diogo de Moraes
   4. Allan JR Ferrari
   5. Gabriela F Souza
   6. Stéfanie Primon Muraro
   7. Thiago L Knittel
   8. Vinicius O Boldrini
   9. Lauar B Monteiro
   10. João Victor Virgílio-da-Silva
   11. Gerson S Profeta
   12. Natália S Wassano
   13. Luana Nunes Santos
   14. Victor C Carregari
   15. Artur HS Dias
   16. Flavio P Veras
   17. Lucas A Tavares
   18. Julia Forato
   19. Icaro MS Castro
   20. Lícia C Silva-Costa
   21. André C Palma
   22. Eli Mansour
   23. Raisa G Ulaf
   24. Ana F Bernardes
   25. Thyago A Nunes
   26. Luciana C Ribeiro
   27. Marcus V Agrela
   28. Maria Luiza Moretti
   29. Lucas I Buscaratti
   30. Fernanda Crunfli
   31. Raissa G Ludwig
   32. Jaqueline A Gerhardt
   33. Natália Munhoz-Alves
   34. Ana Maria Marques
   35. Renata Sesti-Costa
   36. Mariene R Amorim
   37. Daniel A Toledo-Teixeira
   38. Pierina Lorencini Parise
   39. Matheus Cavalheiro Martini
   40. Karina Bispos-dos-Santos
   41. Camila L Simeoni
   42. Fabiana Granja
   43. Virgínia C Silvestrini
   44. Eduardo B de Oliveira
   45. Vitor M Faca
   46. Murilo Carvalho
   47. Bianca G Castelucci
   48. Alexandre B Pereira
   49. Laís D Coimbra
   50. Marieli MG Dias
   51. Patricia B Rodrigues
   52. Arilson Bernardo SP Gomes
   53. Fabricio B Pereira
   54. Leonilda MB Santos
   55. Louis-Marie Bloyet
   56. Spencer Stumpf
   57. Marjorie C Pontelli
   58. Sean Whelan
   59. Andrei C Sposito
   60. Robson F Carvalho
   61. André S Vieira
   62. Marco AR Vinolo
   63. André Damasio
   64. Licio Velloso
   65. Ana Carolina M Figueira
   66. Luis LP da Silva
   67. Thiago Mattar Cunha
   68. Helder I Nakaya
   69. Henrique Marques-Souza
   70. Rafael E Marques
   71. Daniel Martins-de-Souza
   72. Munir S Skaf
   73. Jose Luiz Proenca-Modena
   74. Pedro MM Moraes-Vieira
   75. Marcelo A Mori
   76. Alessandro S Farias

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript by Brunetti et al. represents an important contribution where SARS-CoV-2 infection of T-helper cells is implicated and found to be mediated by CD4. The work progressed through a computationally driven hypothesis, by analyzing the interaction partners of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (as initially modelled through similar SARS-CoV-1), followed by experimental validations, and further computational and experimental insights on the mechanism of binding. The study identifies the interaction between spike RBD domain and N Terminal domain of CD4 molecule as the specific viral attachment strategy. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, the results look significant and the data is clear and enough for understanding the manuscript. It also provides a potential usefulness of their approach in future work in understanding how viruses mediate infection of T cells. The work will be of interest to medical biologists working on SARS-CoV-2.

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

8. Metformin regulates bone marrow stromal cells to accelerate bone healing in diabetic mice

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yuqi Guo
   2. Jianlu Wei
   3. Chuanju Liu
   4. Xin Li
   5. Wenbo Yan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work advances our understanding of the effects of metformin on bone healing in hyperglycemic conditions. The evidence supporting the conclusion is convincing, using three different types of bone fracture models in type-2 diabetes (T2D) mice. This paper is of potential interest to skeletal biologists, orthopaedic surgeons, and endocrinologists who study the effects of metformin on fracture healing.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A critical role for heme synthesis and succinate in the regulation of pluripotent states transitions

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Damien Detraux
   2. Marino Caruso
   3. Louise Feller
   4. Maude Fransolet
   5. Sébastien Meurant
   6. Julie Mathieu
   7. Thierry Arnould
   8. Patricia Renard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In their current study, Detraux D and colleagues provide some evidence suggesting a role for heme biosynthesis on FGF-ERK and TGF beta signalling and exit from naïve pluripotency, and in controlling the 2-cell-like cell state. The observations provided by the authors are interesting and potentially relevant in the field of pluripotent cell state transitions.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Genome-wide screen reveals Rab12 GTPase as a critical activator of Parkinson’s disease-linked LRRK2 kinase

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Herschel S Dhekne
    2. Francesca Tonelli
    3. Wondwossen M Yeshaw
    4. Claire Y Chiang
    5. Charles Limouse
    6. Ebsy Jaimon
    7. Elena Purlyte
    8. Dario R Alessi
    9. Suzanne R Pfeffer

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      Dhekne et al report a novel pathway for activation of the multi-domain LRRK2 protein kinase by Rab12 GTPase. LRRK2, which is mutated in Parkinson's Disease phosphorylates a subset of Rab proteins involved in intracellular trafficking, and Parkinson's disease-linked mutations increase this phosphorylation. This work adds an important new layer of understanding of this highly complex pathway by revealing that LRRK2's binding to Rab12 enhances its ability to phosphorylate Rab10. This conclusion is supported by compelling evidence from a wide array of rigorous approaches.

    Reviewed by eLife