eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Precision RNAi using synthetic shRNAmir target sites

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Thomas Hoffmann
   2. Alexandra Hörmann
   3. Maja Corcokovic
   4. Jakub Zmajkovic
   5. Matthias Hinterndorfer
   6. Jasko Salkanovic
   7. Fiona Spreitzer
   8. Anna Köferle
   9. Katrin Gitschtaler
   10. Alexandra Popa
   11. Sarah Oberndorfer
   12. Florian Andersch
   13. Markus Schaefer
   14. Michaela Fellner
   15. Nicole Budano
   16. Jan G Ruppert
   17. Paolo Chetta
   18. Melanie Wurm
   19. Johannes Zuber
   20. Ralph A Neumüller

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript describes a valuable method to study the mechanism of action of essential genes and novel putative drug targets. Evidence for the effectiveness of the system, which is based on engineering pre-validated targets for RNA-mediated knockdown into genes of interest, is compelling, and the method should find use as an orthogonal method for generating gene specific knockdowns.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Effects of smoking on genome-wide DNA methylation profiles: A study of discordant and concordant monozygotic twin pairs

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Jenny van Dongen
   2. Gonneke Willemsen
   3. BIOS Consortium
   4. Eco JC de Geus
   5. Dorret I Boomsma
   6. Michael C Neale

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable findings from a study of identical twin pairs discordant and concordant for smoking to assess whether smoking has a direct effect on DNA methylation. The results are a valuable contribution as the study confirms the reported association between smoking and epigenetic profile is indeed due to the direct effects of constituents of tobacco smoke. The study design and methods applied by the authors are solid and provide a starting point for larger studies with rigorous laboratory approaches, as well as for assessing clinical impact. The work will be of broad interest to addiction researchers, genetic epidemiologists, and environmental scientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Hippo signaling impairs alveolar epithelial regeneration in pulmonary fibrosis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Rachel Warren
   2. Handeng Lyu
   3. Kylie Klinkhammer
   4. Stijn P De Langhe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an interesting and potentially significant study that adds important new information to our understanding of the mechanisms of lung epithelial repair after tissue injury. The authors have delineated a novel and non redundant role for the hippo pathway and the down stream regulators Yap/Taz in regulating repair of lung injury. These studies will inform future investigations into the mechanisms of repair of lung injury

   Reviewed by eLife

4. A modelled evaluation of the impact of COVID-19 on breast, bowel, and cervical cancer screening programmes in Australia

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Carolyn Nickson
   2. Megan A Smith
   3. Eleonora Feletto
   4. Louiza S Velentzis
   5. Kate Broun
   6. Sabine Deij
   7. Paul Grogan
   8. Michaela Hall
   9. Emily He
   10. D James St John
   11. Jie-Bin Lew
   12. Pietro Procopio
   13. Kate T Simms
   14. Joachim Worthington
   15. G Bruce Mann
   16. Karen Canfell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents important results on the predicted impact of cancer screening disruptions in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic based on consultation with public health stakeholders. The evidence presented is solid, as simulations were based on several previously validated breast, cervical, and bowel cancer screening decision models, though the scenarios were based on hypothetical disruptions that do not always match experienced disruptions. The work will be of interest to local policy-makers, public health specialists, and cancer epidemiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Life-course social disparities in body mass index trajectories across adulthood: cohort study evidence from China health and nutrition survey

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Yusong Dang
   2. Xinyu Duan
   3. Peixi Rong
   4. Mingxin Yan
   5. Yaling Zhao
   6. Baibing Mi
   7. Jing Zhou
   8. Yulong Chen
   9. Duolao Wang
   10. Leilei Pei

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work shows that higher socioeconomic status is associated with a higher risk of obesity, which should inform China's obesity public health programs and policies, and also be of interest to other countries and communities. The evidence supporting the conclusions is strong, but the data analysis is incomplete and would benefit from more rigorous approaches.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Are single-peaked tuning curves tuned for speed rather than accuracy?

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Movitz Lenninger
   2. Mikael Skoglund
   3. Pawel Andrzej Herman
   4. Arvind Kumar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is important work that addresses a long-standing (but rarely acknowledged) question: given that multi-peaked tuning curves optimize Fisher information, why do early sensory areas typically have single-peaked tuning curves? This paper shows clearly, and convincingly, that multi-peaked tuning curves are likely to produce catastrophic errors at short times, so if speed is important, multi-peaked tuning curves should be avoided. This work should encourage neuroscientists to take into account the importance of stimulus encoding time in their formulations of models of neural coding.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Nuclear SUN1 stabilizes endothelial cell junctions via microtubules to regulate blood vessel formation

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Danielle B Buglak
   2. Pauline Bougaran
   3. Molly R Kulikauskas
   4. Ziqing Liu
   5. Elizabeth Monaghan-Benson
   6. Ariel L Gold
   7. Allison P Marvin
   8. Andrew Burciu
   9. Natalie T Tanke
   10. Morgan Oatley
   11. Shea N Ricketts
   12. Karina Kinghorn
   13. Bryan N Johnson
   14. Celia E Shiau
   15. Stephen Rogers
   16. Christophe Guilluy
   17. Victoria L Bautch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Endothelial cells mediate the growth of the vascular system, but they also need to prevent vascular leakage, which involves interactions with neighboring endothelial cells through junctional protein complexes. This important study provides a full mechanistic insight into how Sun1 is achieving its function, which supports the concept that nuclear anchoring is critical for proper mechanosensing and junctional organization. Although the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid and there are several merits and strengths in this study, a weakness is that some important controls are missing. The work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and vascular biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Reassessment of weak parent-of-origin expression bias shows it rarely exists outside of known imprinted regions

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Carol A Edwards
   2. William MD Watkinson
   3. Stephanie B Telerman
   4. Lisa C Hulsmann
   5. Russell S Hamilton
   6. Anne C Ferguson-Smith

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript presents a useful meta-analysis of genes with parent-specific expression from mouse published RNA-seq datasets, focusing on genes with weak allelic bias. A combination of systematic bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation convincingly shows that the number of parentally biased genes has been overestimated and the few novel ones lie at the periphery of known imprinted loci. The work will be of interest to genomicists with an interest in imprinting and its mechanisms.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Haploinsufficiency of the essential gene Rps12 causes defects in erythropoiesis and hematopoietic stem cell maintenance

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Virginia Folgado-Marco
   2. Kristina Ames
   3. Jacky Chuen
   4. Kira Gritsman
   5. Nicholas E Baker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study will be of interest to scientists within the field of hematopoiesis and ribosome biology. The paper provides evidence that haploinsufficiency of the mouse ribosomal protein gene Rps12 results in a number of phenotypes including defects in the production of specific blood cells and loss of hematopoietic stem cell quiescence. This work adds to the growing body of evidence that specific cell populations are particularly sensitive to disruption of mRNA translation machinery.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Behavioral dissection of hunger states in Drosophila

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Kristina J Weaver
    2. Sonakshi Raju
    3. Rachel A Rucker
    4. Tuhin Chakraborty
    5. Robert A Holt
    6. Scott D Pletcher

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important paper advances our ability to understand feeding behavior in fruit flies and begins to address the challenging question of motivation. With innovative methods based on the detailed monitoring of interactions between foods of different qualities at different hunger states, they present compelling evidence for non-homeostatic feeding not driven by metabolic need.

    Reviewed by eLife