eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Structures of RecBCD in complex with phage-encoded inhibitor proteins reveal distinctive strategies for evasion of a bacterial immunity hub

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Martin Wilkinson
   2. Oliver J Wilkinson
   3. Connie Feyerherm
   4. Emma E Fletcher
   5. Dale B Wigley
   6. Mark S Dillingham

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study addresses the ways in which bacteriophages antagonize or coopt the DNA restriction and/or recombination functions of the bacterial RecBCD helicase-nuclease. The evidence from both biochemistry and structural biology showing convergent evolution is convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Scleraxis-lineage cells are required for tendon homeostasis and their depletion induces an accelerated extracellular matrix aging phenotype

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Antonion Korcari
   2. Anne EC Nichols
   3. Mark R Buckley
   4. Alayna E Loiselle

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work advances our understanding of the cellular and molecular changes of the aged tendon. The evidence supporting the conclusion is convincing, using a DTR-based ScxLin cell depletion model along with state-of-art proteomic and scRNA-seq analyses. This paper is of potential interest to scientists and physicians who study the mechanisms of the tendon aging process.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. STAT3 promotes RNA polymerase III-directed transcription by controlling the miR-106a-5p/TP73 axis

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Cheng Zhang
   2. Shasha Zhao
   3. Huan Deng
   4. Shihua Zhang
   5. Juan Wang
   6. Xiaoye Song
   7. Deen Yu
   8. Yue Zhang
   9. Wensheng Deng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The author arrive at the convincing conclusion that STAT3 expression promotes TFIIIB assembly through miR-106A-5p-mediated inhibition of TP73 expression, thereby increasing Pol III transcription, which contributes to enhanced cell proliferation. The data are very good and clearly support the proposed model.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Structures of human dynein in complex with the lissencephaly 1 protein, LIS1

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Janice M Reimer
   2. Morgan E DeSantis
   3. Samara L Reck-Peterson
   4. Andres E Leschziner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents the cryo-EM structure of the dynein regulator Lis1 bound to human dynein providing important insight into how these two proteins interact. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is overall convincing though it requires some minor re-analysis. The work will be of interest to researchers working with motor proteins and neurodevelopmental disorders as it helps rationalize how mutations in Lis1 or dynein lead to disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences from 33 globally distributed mosquito species for improved metagenomics and species identification

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Cassandra Koh
   2. Lionel Frangeul
   3. Hervé Blanc
   4. Carine Ngoagouni
   5. Sébastien Boyer
   6. Philippe Dussart
   7. Nina Grau
   8. Romain Girod
   9. Jean-Bernard Duchemin
   10. Maria-Carla Saleh

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript generates a valuable new genetic resource for studying mosquitos and the pathogens that they carry. For 33 species of mosquitoes, the authors have sequenced and assembled the ribosomal RNA, which will dramatically improve the power of RNA sequencing in mosquitoes.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Myosin II regulatory light chain phosphorylation and formin availability modulate cytokinesis upon changes in carbohydrate metabolism

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Francisco Prieto-Ruiz
   2. Elisa Gómez-Gil
   3. Rebeca Martín-García
   4. Armando Jesús Pérez-Díaz
   5. Jero Vicente-Soler
   6. Alejandro Franco
   7. Teresa Soto
   8. Pilar Pérez
   9. Marisa Madrid
   10. José Cansado

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Force generation by the myosin motor plays an important role during cell division. Myosin activity is regulated by phosphorylation, which activates myosin in animals but was thought to inactivate it in yeast. In this valuable study, the authors use a combination of convincing approaches to show that under some growth conditions, dependent on the carbon source of the growth medium, phosphorylation becomes essential for myosin function.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Evidence for virus-mediated oncogenesis in bladder cancers arising in solid organ transplant recipients

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Gabriel J Starrett
   2. Kelly Yu
   3. Yelena Golubeva
   4. Petra Lenz
   5. Mary L Piaskowski
   6. David Petersen
   7. Michael Dean
   8. Ajay Israni
   9. Brenda Y Hernandez
   10. Thomas C Tucker
   11. Iona Cheng
   12. Lou Gonsalves
   13. Cyllene R Morris
   14. Shehnaz K Hussain
   15. Charles F Lynch
   16. Reuben S Harris
   17. Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson
   18. Paul S Meltzer
   19. Christopher B Buck
   20. Eric A Engels

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The fundamental work by Starret et al advances the understanding of the etiological roles of viruses and other environmental factors in bladder cancers after solid organ transplantation. The evidence is compelling using cutting edge sequencing approaches of patient samples. This work will be immediately interesting to multiple fields (of viral oncogenesis, BK polyomavirus (BKPyV) and JC polyomavirus (JCPyV), solid organ transplantation and whole genome and transcriptome sequencing) and may eventually influence care after organ transplantation.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Two forms of asynchronous release with distinctive spatiotemporal dynamics in central synapses

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Gerardo Malagon
   2. Jongyun Myeong
   3. Vitaly A Klyachko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study addresses a fundamental question about the spatiotemporal location of neurotransmitter release in a synapse with essential implications for postsynaptic signaling and neural excitability in general. The authors provide convincing evidence on non-overlapping nanometer scale organization of the two primary forms of evoked vesicle fusion (synchronous and asynchronous) in the synapse. They utilize tools for super-resolution assessment of synaptic transmission that were previously developed in their lab, in this way they help bridge earlier work based on imaging approaches that lack temporal resolution and electrophysiological results lacking spatial resolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Live imaging reveals chromatin compaction transitions and dynamic transcriptional bursting during stem cell differentiation in vivo

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Dennis May
   2. Sangwon Yun
   3. David G Gonzalez
   4. Sangbum Park
   5. Yanbo Chen
   6. Elizabeth Lathrop
   7. Biao Cai
   8. Tianchi Xin
   9. Hongyu Zhao
   10. Siyuan Wang
   11. Lauren E Gonzalez
   12. Katie Cockburn
   13. Valentina Greco

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important and valuable paper that uses H2B overexpression to quantify changes to chromatin compaction using elegant in vivo imaging approaches in the live epidermis in stem cells undergoing epidermal differentiation. The results confirm in vitro findings that changes to chromatin compaction precede cell fate commitment during epidermal stem cell differentiation. These conclusions are mostly supported by solid and convincing experimental and quantitative evidence and the recapitulation of chromatin and transcriptional phenomena in a live tissue setting using careful in vivo imaging and quantification is of value.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Joint inference of evolutionary transitions to self-fertilization and demographic history using whole-genome sequences

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Stefan Strütt
    2. Thibaut Sellinger
    3. Sylvain Glémin
    4. Aurélien Tellier
    5. Stefan Laurent

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This manuscript details the valuable development of population genetics theory that can be used to infer past changes in the selfing rate in natural populations. The inference procedure is solid, although the comparison to previous estimates can be improved, and deeper insight could be gained from further theoretical exploration. The work will be of broad interest to the field of mating systems evolution.

    Reviewed by eLife