eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Theta-phase-specific modulation of dentate gyrus memory neurons

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Bahar Rahsepar
   2. Jacob F Norman
   3. Jad Noueihed
   4. Benjamin Lahner
   5. Melanie H Quick
   6. Kevin Ghaemi
   7. Aashna Pandya
   8. Fernando R Fernandez
   9. Steve Ramirez
   10. John A White

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study represents an important step toward unifying two strains of inquiry, one related to the functional role of hippocampal theta oscillations and one related to the behavioral impact of engram reactivation, and thus the findings have implications for our understanding of memory that will impact multiple subfields. In combination with additional context from the literature, the important findings are supported by solid evidence supporting the conclusion that memory recall operations occur preferentially at a specific phase of theta.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Bilateral JNK activation is a hallmark of interface surveillance and promotes elimination of aberrant cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Deepti Prasad
   2. Katharina Illek
   3. Friedericke Fischer
   4. Katrin Holstein
   5. Anne-Kathrin Classen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an interesting study investigating a mechanism for the elimination of aberrant cells from epithelial tissues dependent on the contractility of the interface between cells with different fates regulated by JNK activity. This work offers insights into robustness and error correction mechanisms that help understand cell-cell competition and the origin of tumors. The study should be relevant for cell, developmental and cancer biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Structural features stabilized by divalent cation coordination within hepatitis E virus ORF1 are critical for viral replication

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Robert LeDesma
   2. Brigitte Heller
   3. Abhishek Biswas
   4. Stephanie Maya
   5. Stefania Gili
   6. John Higgins
   7. Alexander Ploss

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The paper aims to provide structural and functional information on the hepatitis E virus replication complex. The study will be of interest to a broad number of people studying at virus replication, since the replication complex are targets for therapeutic interventions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Enteroendocrine cell lineages that differentially control feeding and gut motility

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Marito Hayashi
   2. Judith A Kaye
   3. Ella R Douglas
   4. Narendra R Joshi
   5. Fiona M Gribble
   6. Frank Reimann
   7. Stephen D Liberles

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     As digested food moves through the intestines specialized epithelial cells (called Enterochromaffin Cells or EECs) sense and respond to the constituent chemicals. The current work utilizes single-cell transcriptomic analyses and intersectional approaches to define and genetically manipulate subsets of EECs. Key findings are that direct stimulation of EEC subtypes influences key aspects of feeding, specifically gut transit, ingestion, and food preference.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Cohesin-independent STAG proteins interact with RNA and R-loops and promote complex loading

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Hayley Porter
   2. Yang Li
   3. Maria Victoria Neguembor
   4. Manuel Beltran
   5. Wazeer Varsally
   6. Laura Martin
   7. Manuel Tavares Cornejo
   8. Dubravka Pezić
   9. Amandeep Bhamra
   10. Silvia Surinova
   11. Richard G Jenner
   12. Maria Pia Cosma
   13. Suzana Hadjur

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides evidence that the Stromalin Antigen (SA) proteins known to ubiquitously interact with cohesins, retain their capacity to bind CTCF and chromatin in the absence of RAD21 cohesin component. Authors imply that SA has an independent function in addition to its joint role with RAD21 and CTCF, providing experiments that make them suggest that SA proteins organize around RNA:DNA regions in the absence of cohesin, contributing to R-loop regulation and linking chromatin on structure to cohesin loading. The paper is a nice piece of work of interest to readers in the field of cohesin biology and genome organization. However, additional, experiments would be required to strengthen some of the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Palmitoylation regulates neuropilin-2 localization and function in cortical neurons and conveys specificity to semaphorin signaling via palmitoyl acyltransferases

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Eleftheria Koropouli
   2. Qiang Wang
   3. Rebeca Mejías
   4. Randal Hand
   5. Tao Wang
   6. David D Ginty
   7. Alex L Kolodkin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Signaling mediated by Semaphorins and their receptors Nrp1 and Nrp2 is crucial for regulating the morphology of dendritic spines and dendritic arborization during development. In this manuscript, the authors found that the post-translational modification of S-palmitoylation dictates the subcellular localization and trafficking of Nrp2, but not Nrp1, and is required for Sema3F-dependent pruning of spines on the apical dendrites of layer V cortical neurons. The study provides important insights into how semaphorin signaling achieves spatial specificity on diverse downstream cellular events.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Molecular basis of interactions between CaMKII and α-actinin-2 that underlie dendritic spine enlargement

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ashton J Curtis
   2. Jian Zhu
   3. Christopher J Penny
   4. Matthew G Gold

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study from Gold and colleagues substantially advances our understanding of the synaptic targeting of a major postsynaptic protein kinase, CaMKII, which is the basis for the persistence of excitatory synaptic strength in synaptic plasticity. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing, with cell biological, biochemical, as well as structural biological approaches. This work will be of interest to cell and computational biologists working on learning/memory.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. PASK links cellular energy metabolism with a mitotic self-renewal network to establish differentiation competence

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Michael Xiao
   2. Chia-Hua Wu
   3. Graham Meek
   4. Brian Kelly
   5. Dara Buendia Castillo
   6. Lyndsay EA Young
   7. Sara Martire
   8. Sajina Dhungel
   9. Elizabeth McCauley
   10. Purbita Saha
   11. Altair L Dube
   12. Matthew S Gentry
   13. Laura A Banaszynski
   14. Ramon C Sun
   15. Chintan K Kikani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study advances the understanding of metabolic regulation underpinning self-renewal of stem cells. The authors report that glutamine-dependent acetylation of the kinase PASK regulates its nuclear localization. Evidence is provided that nuclear PASK binds and disrupts Wdr5 association with the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome and is a trigger for the activation of myogenic programs in cultured cells. The study will be of interest to an audience in the areas of stem cells, regeneration and metabolic signalling.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Single-cell analysis reveals dynamics of human B cell differentiation and identifies novel B and antibody-secreting cell intermediates

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Niels JM Verstegen
   2. Sabrina Pollastro
   3. Peter-Paul A Unger
   4. Casper Marsman
   5. George Elias
   6. Tineke Jorritsma
   7. Marij Streutker
   8. Kevin Bassler
   9. Kristian Haendler
   10. Theo Rispens
   11. Joachim L Schultze
   12. Anja ten Brinke
   13. Marc Beyer
   14. S Marieke van Ham

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this work, Verstegen and colleagues established an in vitro system and describe human B cell differentiation pathways via germinal center B cells towards plasma cells by performing single-cell analysis of in vitro stimulated human B cells. The study provides solid evidence toward establishment of in vitro model for B cell differentiation. This study may be valuable in differentiation of primary naive B cells into ASC ex vivo and will be of interest for immunologists with emphasis in B cell biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The normalization model predicts responses in the human visual cortex during object-based attention

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Narges Doostani
    2. Gholam-Ali Hossein-Zadeh
    3. Maryam Vaziri-Pashkam

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      The authors state that there is scant experimental evidence of divisive normalization of neural responses in the human brain. They used fMRI BOLD response to high-level stimuli to explore normalization in V1, object-selective (LO and pFs) and category-selective regions (EBA and PPA) as well effects of attention on cortical responses. Specifically, the authors first test the degree to which BOLD responses to body parts and houses exhibit responses predicted by a non-linear normalization model, compared to two linear models (weighted sum and weighted average). They find that responses, when considering responses to one vs two stimuli, are best fit with the normalization model. They then suggest that object-based attention effects can be better accounted for by a normalization model of attention, compared to attention variants of the aforementioned models. The paper could potentially be an important contribution to the fields of perceptual and cognitive neuroscience, but the conclusions are not sufficiently supported by the data at this stage. Several theoretical and methodological concerns limit the conclusions of this study.

    Reviewed by eLife