eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Pleiotropic effects of BAFF on the senescence-associated secretome and growth arrest

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Martina Rossi
   2. Carlos Anerillas
   3. Maria Laura Idda
   4. Rachel Munk
   5. Chang Hoon Shin
   6. Stefano Donega
   7. Dimitrios Tsitsipatis
   8. Allison B Herman
   9. Jennifer L Martindale
   10. Xiaoling Yang
   11. Yulan Piao
   12. Krystyna Mazan-Mamczarz
   13. Jinshui Fan
   14. Luigi Ferrucci
   15. Peter F Johnson
   16. Supriyo De
   17. Kotb Abdelmohsen
   18. Myriam Gorospe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Rossi et al. carry out a valuable characterization of the molecular circuitry connecting the immunomodulatory cytokine BAFF (B-cell activating factor) in the context of cellular senescence. They present solid evidence that BAFF is upregulated in response to senescence, and that this upregulation is partially driven by the immune response-regulating transcription factor (TF) IRF1, with potential cell type-specific effects during senescence. Ultimately, these results strongly suggest that BAFF plays a senomorphic role in senescence, modulating downstream senescence-associated phenotypes, and may be an interesting candidate for senomorphic therapy.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Resting mitochondrial complex I from Drosophila melanogaster adopts a helix-locked state

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Abhilash Padavannil
   2. Anjaneyulu Murari
   3. Shauna-Kay Rhooms
   4. Edward Owusu-Ansah
   5. James A Letts

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work provides new insights into the structure and function of respiratory complex I. The cryoEM data are convincing but the assignment of different conformations of the enzyme complex to specific functional states has not yet been conclusively determined. This work will be of interest to researchers studying the molecular basis of energy metabolism, the evolution of respiratory enzyme complexes, and mitochondrial diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Targeted multi-omic analysis of human skin tissue identifies alterations of conventional and unconventional T cells associated with burn injury

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Daniel R Labuz
   2. Giavonni Lewis
   3. Irma D Fleming
   4. Callie M Thompson
   5. Yan Zhai
   6. Matthew A Firpo
   7. Daniel T Leung

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript provides an important advance in our understanding of burn-associated T-cell responses. The evidence is convincing and the techniques are using the latest single-cell RNA-seq approaches in a rigorous manner. The studies are done directly on human skin so are highly clinically relevant.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Larger but younger fish when growth outpaces mortality in heated ecosystem

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Max Lindmark
   2. Malin Karlsson
   3. Anna Gårdmark

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The work by Lindmark et al. provides us with an important natural experiment on fish that challenges current literature on relationships between temperature, growth rate, and size. The strength of their results is compelling, as Lindmark et al. mixed a unique warming setup with a large battery of models and statistics. The work will be of interest to ecologists and physiologists interested in the impacts of global warming on natural communities.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Spatially resolved transcriptomics reveals pro-inflammatory fibroblast involved in lymphocyte recruitment through CXCL8 and CXCL10

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Ana J Caetano
   2. Yushi Redhead
   3. Farah Karim
   4. Pawan Dhami
   5. Shichina Kannambath
   6. Rosamond Nuamah
   7. Ana A Volponi
   8. Luigi Nibali
   9. Veronica Booth
   10. Eleanor M D'Agostino
   11. Paul T Sharpe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The findings of this article provide valuable information on the spatial dynamics of the human oral mucosa in chronic inflammatory disease. The strength of evidence presented is solid and should yield a better understanding of common mucosal diseases in humans.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Toward a more informative representation of the fetal–neonatal brain connectome using variational autoencoder

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Jung-Hoon Kim
   2. Josepheen De Asis-Cruz
   3. Dhineshvikram Krishnamurthy
   4. Catherine Limperopoulos

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents an application of a deep learning approach (adult-trained variational autoencoder) to describe the development of the functional brain connectome in human fetuses and neonates. The results suggest that this may lead to a better characterization of the complex patterns of brain maturation during this period. The evidence is convincing but the impact of other confounding factors in addition to maturation on the results could be explored and further analysis should be considered to highlight how this method can account for non-linear patterns of development, as well as the biological plausibility of the observed brain states. This work is of potential methodological interest to researchers exploring functional brain networks and brain development notably with deep learning.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. The SARS-CoV-2 accessory protein Orf3a is not an ion channel, but does interact with trafficking proteins

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Alexandria N Miller
   2. Patrick R Houlihan
   3. Ella Matamala
   4. Deny Cabezas-Bratesco
   5. Gi Young Lee
   6. Ben Cristofori-Armstrong
   7. Tanya L Dilan
   8. Silvia Sanchez-Martinez
   9. Doreen Matthies
   10. Rui Yan
   11. Zhiheng Yu
   12. Dejian Ren
   13. Sebastian E Brauchi
   14. David E Clapham

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The function of specific proteins made by SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 is under debate, with diverging claims previously published regarding the ability of Orf3a proteins from either virus to form ion channels. The authors undertook a thorough characterization of Orf3a from CoV-1 and CoV-2 by combining data from a range of different structural and functional experiments, arguably providing the most compelling evidence to date that Orf3a from viruses is not an ion channel. Instead, the orthologue-specific interaction with a component of a larger protein complex suggests a role of one of the two membrane proteins in the endo-lysosomal pathway. The work is significant from a fundamental science perspective, for its implications for COVID antiviral development strategies, and also for establishing guidelines for future identification of true viral ion channels.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Flexible coding of time or distance in hippocampal cells

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Shai Abramson
   2. Benjamin J Kraus
   3. John A White
   4. Michael E Hasselmo
   5. Dori Derdikman
   6. Genela Morris

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript by Abramson and colleagues is a new analysis of previously published data from experiments in which rats ran on a treadmill in either fixed-time or fixed-distance trials. The valuable results provide solid evidence to demonstrate that time and distance cells are more common in fixed-time and fixed-distance trials, respectively. These findings suggest that the hippocampus flexibly shifts between representing variables depending on their relevance.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Growth cone advance requires EB1 as revealed by genomic replacement with a light-sensitive variant

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Alessandro Dema
   2. Rabab Charafeddine
   3. Shima Rahgozar
   4. Jeffrey van Haren
   5. Torsten Wittmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In their manuscript, Dema et al. showcase an important tool to study the role of the microtubule end-binding protein, EB1. This important study is the first to locally inactivate EB1 in human neurons, and while the authors have previously published the effects of replacing endogenous EB1 with a light-sensitive variant, the novelty in this current study is that they use a one-step gene editing replacement method in addition to using human neurons derived from iPSCs. The data is of high quality and the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although including more controls are needed to strengthen the study. The findings of this work will be of interest to cell biologists and neurobiologists, while the methods utilized will have an even broader general interest.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A chronic signaling TGFb zebrafish reporter identifies immune response in melanoma

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Haley R Noonan
    2. Alexandra M Thornock
    3. Julia Barbano
    4. Michael E Xifaras
    5. Chloe S Baron
    6. Song Yang
    7. Katherine Koczirka
    8. Alicia M McConnell
    9. Leonard I Zon

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This study presents a valuable enhancer reporter of TGFb signaling in melanoma that has a conserved function in both human cell lines and zebrafish. The reporter data is solid and provides interesting insights into TGFb targets in melanoma. However, the model that macrophages preferentially phagocytose certain subsets of melanoma cells is still incomplete, and more data will be needed before this process is clearly understood.

    Reviewed by eLife