eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma organoids as models of chromosomal instability

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Maria Vias
   2. Lena Morrill Gavarró
   3. Carolin M Sauer
   4. Deborah A Sanders
   5. Anna M Piskorz
   6. Dominique-Laurent Couturier
   7. Stéphane Ballereau
   8. Bárbara Hernando
   9. Michael P Schneider
   10. James Hall
   11. Filipe Correia-Martins
   12. Florian Markowetz
   13. Geoff Macintyre
   14. James D Brenton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study reveals that patient-derived organoids recapitulate similar genomic signatures as that of the parental tissue, which could be a useful model to evaluate chromosome instability, drug sensitivity, and intratumoral heterogeneity. However, whereas some of the sequencing data are compelling, the theoretical analysis is incomplete and would benefit from a more rigorous definition. With the theoretical part strengthened, the work will be of interest to medical biologists working on ovarian carcinoma.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Gene editing and scalable functional genomic screening in Leishmania species using the CRISPR/Cas9 cytosine base editor toolbox LeishBASEedit

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Markus Engstler
   2. Tom Beneke

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Only few species of Leishmania, an important human pathogen, have an RNAi machinery, alternative methods are needed for genetic screens. The authors resent and validate a valuable method, based on the introduction of premature stop codons, that can be used for several different species. The results are very convincing, the data are solid, and the approach will be of interest to researchers studying any eukaryote that lacks the RNAi machinery.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. An umbrella review of systematic reviews on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer prevention and management, and patient needs

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Taulant Muka
   2. Joshua JX Li
   3. Sahar J Farahani
   4. John PA Ioannidis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This convincing work reviews and synthesizes evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a variety of cancer outcomes. The results have potentially useful implications for various fields of cancer research as they review evidence spanning from cancer prevention efforts to changes in diagnoses and cancer treatment modalities.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Intermediate filament network perturbation in the C. elegans intestine causes systemic dysfunctions

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Florian Geisler
   2. Sanne Remmelzwaal
   3. Vera Jankowski
   4. Ruben Schmidt
   5. Mike Boxem
   6. Rudolf E Leube

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment:

     Mutations in a variety of intermediate filament proteins and their regulators lead to abnormal development, reduced lifetime, and increased stress sensitivity. This manuscript rigorously demonstrates that such defects result from inappropriate assembly of intermediate filament networks, as mutations in a central intermediate filament protein prevent assembly of both the normal network and these inappropriate assemblages and largely rescue most of the defects. This has important implications for our understanding of the assembly of intermediate filament structures and for understanding and potentially treating diseases resulting from mutations in intermediate filament protein genes.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Analysis of CDPK1 targets identifies a trafficking adaptor complex that regulates microneme exocytosis in Toxoplasma

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Alex W Chan
   2. Malgorzata Broncel
   3. Eden Yifrach
   4. Nicole R Haseley
   5. Sundeep Chakladar
   6. Elena Andree
   7. Alice L Herneisen
   8. Emily Shortt
   9. Moritz Treeck
   10. Sebastian Lourido

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study in the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii significantly advances our understanding of calcium signaling mediated by the kinase CDPK1 in this species. The authors' conclusions are supported by convincing evidence, with rigorous biochemical experiments and microscopy analysis. The work will be of broad interest to researchers in the fields of signal transduction and protozoan biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Metabolic activity organizes olfactory representations

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Wesley W Qian
   2. Jennifer N Wei
   3. Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling
   4. Brian K Lee
   5. Yunan Luo
   6. Marnix Vlot
   7. Koen Dechering
   8. Jian Peng
   9. Richard C Gerkin
   10. Alexander B Wiltschko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study that asks why odors smell similar even though their chemical structures appear quite different. The authors use machine-learning to make a compelling case to map the odor-relatedness of compounds to their place in metabolic pathways and propose that this is a general feature of odor perception across the animal kingdom. The conclusions could be strengthened by considering published physiological data.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Antigenic mapping and functional characterization of human New World hantavirus neutralizing antibodies

   This article has 22 authors:

   1. Taylor B Engdahl
   2. Elad Binshtein
   3. Rebecca L Brocato
   4. Natalia A Kuzmina
   5. Lucia M Principe
   6. Steven A Kwilas
   7. Robert K Kim
   8. Nathaniel S Chapman
   9. Monique S Porter
   10. Pablo Guardado-Calvo
   11. Félix A Rey
   12. Laura S Handal
   13. Summer M Diaz
   14. Irene A Zagol-Ikapitte
   15. Minh H Tran
   16. W Hayes McDonald
   17. Jens Meiler
   18. Joseph X Reidy
   19. Andrew Trivette
   20. Alexander Bukreyev
   21. Jay W Hooper
   22. James E Crowe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Antibodies perform a critical function in host defense against viruses and have emerged as major therapeutic tools in modern medicine, as evidenced by the large scale use antibody-based therapies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the characterization of human antibodies to hantaviruses that have the potential to create devastating epidemics. The results teach us about the viral structures that are targets for neutralization and the results are relevant for vaccine development and antibody therapeutic design.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Cholinergic and noradrenergic axonal activity contains a behavioral-state signal that is coordinated across the dorsal cortex

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Lindsay Collins
   2. John Francis
   3. Brett Emanuel
   4. David A McCormick

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study uses behavioral monitoring and cutting-edge calcium imaging approaches to track the activity of cholinergic and noradrenergic axons in cortex of head-fixed mice, and correlate activity with behavioral state. While the evidence that behaviorally related signals are broadly broadcasted to the dorsal cortex is clear from the data, the conclusion that there is also heterogeneity across axons and areas is of less certain significance and might be undermined by methodological artifacts.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Pigment cell progenitor heterogeneity and reiteration of developmental signaling underlie melanocyte regeneration in zebrafish

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. William Tyler Frantz
   2. Sharanya Iyengar
   3. James Neiswender
   4. Alyssa Cousineau
   5. René Maehr
   6. Craig J Ceol

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this work Frantz et al. assess transcriptomic states of melanocyte stem cells that are recruited to differentiate during the process of melanocyte regeneration in zebrafish and they analyze roles for Kit signaling in this process. The analyses are nicely done, and the paper requires only relatively minor modifications and clarifications. The study will provide new insights into melanocyte stem cell biology that should be of interest to those studying pigmentation, regeneration, and melanoma biology using zebrafish and other systems.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. RNA Polymerase II transcription independent of TBP in murine embryonic stem cells

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. James ZJ Kwan
    2. Thomas F Nguyen
    3. Anuli C Uzozie
    4. Marek A Budzynski
    5. Jieying Cui
    6. Joseph MC Lee
    7. Filip Van Petegem
    8. Philipp F Lange
    9. Sheila S Teves

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study employs auxin-induced degradation to show that the TATA-binding protein (TBP) is not required for ongoing RNA polymerase II transcription nor heat-shock or retinoic acid-induced transcription, but that TBP is essential for RNA polymerase III transcription, with TBP-independent TFIID complexes being assembled and present at the transcription start sites of polymerase II-transcribed promoters. The evidence for the major claims is currently incomplete.

    Reviewed by eLife