eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The ‘ForensOMICS’ approach for postmortem interval estimation from human bone by integrating metabolomics, lipidomics, and proteomics

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Andrea Bonicelli
   2. Hayley L Mickleburgh
   3. Alberto Chighine
   4. Emanuela Locci
   5. Daniel J Wescott
   6. Noemi Procopio

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This well-presented and sophisticated study provides significant proof-of-concept for the application of the ForensOMICS approach as a new pathway for forensic taphonomy with great promise to advance future research. The solid foundation of the research combining metabolomics, proteomics, and lipidomics is considered very exciting, strong, and expands the boundaries of forensics research.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Human DUX4 and mouse Dux interact with STAT1 and broadly inhibit interferon-stimulated gene induction

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Amy E Spens
   2. Nicholas A Sutliff
   3. Sean R Bennett
   4. Amy E Campbell
   5. Stephen J Tapscott

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The transcription factor DUX4 is emerging as a key molecule in early mammalian development and in diverse pathologies including muscular dystrophy and solid tumors. While DUX4 has been linked to immune evasion, the mechanisms have not been delineated. In this study, the authors demonstrate that DUX4 functions as a negative regulator of interferon signaling by inhibiting STAT1, thereby suppressing interferon-stimulated gene induction. These studies provide a critical mechanistic link between DUX4 expression and the modulation of immune signaling pathways.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Human endogenous oxytocin and its neural correlates show adaptive responses to social touch based on recent social context

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Linda Handlin
   2. Giovanni Novembre
   3. Helene Lindholm
   4. Robin Kämpe
   5. Elisabeth Paul
   6. India Morrison

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript contains fundamental work on hormonal and neurobiological processing of social experience in humans. It sheds compelling new light on potential mechanisms underlying how humans place social experiences in context, demonstrating how oxytocin and cortisol might interact to modulate higher-level processing and contextualizing of familiar vs. stranger encounters.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The aperiodic exponent of subthalamic field potentials reflects excitation/inhibition balance in Parkinsonism

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Christoph Wiest
   2. Flavie Torrecillos
   3. Alek Pogosyan
   4. Manuel Bange
   5. Muthuraman Muthuraman
   6. Sergiu Groppa
   7. Natasha Hulse
   8. Harutomo Hasegawa
   9. Keyoumars Ashkan
   10. Fahd Baig
   11. Francesca Morgante
   12. Erlick A Pereira
   13. Nicolas Mallet
   14. Peter J Magill
   15. Peter Brown
   16. Andrew Sharott
   17. Huiling Tan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important manuscript the authors use a powerful cross-specifies approach and cutting-edge experimental methods to examine possible shifts in the excitatory and inhibitory balance in both an animal model of Parkinsonism and in human patients with Parkinson's disease. Their solid findings support such a shift, wherein untreated Parkinson's disease is characterized by excessive activity in the subthalamic nucleus. While a strong paper, there are concerns with some of the methodological choices and their implications.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Huntingtin recruits KIF1A to transport synaptic vesicle precursors along the mouse axon to support synaptic transmission and motor skill learning

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Hélène Vitet
   2. Julie Bruyère
   3. Hao Xu
   4. Claire Séris
   5. Jacques Brocard
   6. Yah-Sé Abada
   7. Benoît Delatour
   8. Chiara Scaramuzzino
   9. Laurent Venance
   10. Frédéric Saudou

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important study, the authors examine transport and synaptic activity in the corticostriatal circuit in both microfluidic devices and in mice. They convincingly show that the Huntingtin protein regulates the anterograde transport of synaptic vesicle precursors in coordination with the molecular motor KIF1A. Activated Huntingtin recruits KIF1A, accelerates synaptic vesicle precursor's transport, modifies synaptic transmission and motor skill learning in mice. This work sheds new light on the role of axonal transport in synaptic function under physiological and pathological conditions related to Huntington's disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. A Drosophila glial cell atlas reveals a mismatch between detectable transcriptional diversity and morphological diversity

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Inês Lago-Baldaia
   2. Maia Cooper
   3. Austin Seroka
   4. Chintan Trivedi
   5. Gareth T. Powell
   6. Stephen Wilson
   7. Sarah D. Ackerman
   8. Vilaiwan M. Fernandes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents an atlas of glial cell morphology in Drosophila, from distinct locations at different periods of life. The authors integrate morphological information with the transcriptomic signatures of those cells and find that morphological diversity among glial cells of a given class is not a strong predictor of transcriptional identity. The study is of great value as connecting morphology with scRNA sequencing analysis is rarely done and is a necessary step for understanding the underlying biology of these cells. While the weak morphotype-transcriptomic link in many cases may be due to low sequencing resolution, nonetheless, the data are of very high quality and the study will be a very useful resource for the glial biology field.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Metformin protects trabecular meshwork against oxidative injury via activating integrin/ROCK signals

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Lijuan Xu
   2. Xinyao Zhang
   3. Yin Zhao
   4. Xiaorui Gang
   5. Tao Zhou
   6. Jialing Han
   7. Yang Cao
   8. Binyan Qi
   9. Shuning Song
   10. Xiaojie Wang
   11. Yuanbo Liang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript proposes that metformin protects against elevated intraocular pressure and oxidative injury by regulating cytoskeleton remodeling through the integrin/ROCK pathway, thus providing a new direction for further exploration toward the treatment of primary open-angle glaucoma as well as investigation of oxidative injury in multiple settings.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Cellular compartmentalisation and receptor promiscuity as a strategy for accurate and robust inference of position during morphogenesis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Krishnan S Iyer
   2. Chaitra Prabhakara
   3. Satyajit Mayor
   4. Madan Rao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work is of high relevance to developmental and quantitative biologists with an interest in morphogen-mediated position decoding. A general mathematical model formulation is presented that is nevertheless accessible to a broad audience. Model tests via perturbation experiments in the Drosophila wing disc look promising and inspire a new round of data generation.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Kap-β2/Transportin mediates β-catenin nuclear transport in Wnt signaling

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Woong Y Hwang
   2. Valentyna Kostiuk
   3. Delfina P González
   4. C Patrick Lusk
   5. Mustafa K Khokha

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Using a heterologous model system of budding yeast, authors find that nuclear translocation of beta-catenin is mediated by Kap104, the ortholog of Transportin (TNPO)1/2. A TNPO1 binding motif was identified in the C-terminal region of beta-catenin, which serves as a nuclear localization signal, and mutation of the motif inhibits beta-catenin mediated transcription. The manuscript serves as a staring point to study how much this motif contributes to nuclear localization of full-length beta-catenin in mammalian cells and to assess whether inhibiting TNPO1 interaction can reduce hyperactivation of beta-catenin signaling.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Signal denoising through topographic modularity of neural circuits

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Barna Zajzon
    2. David Dahmen
    3. Abigail Morrison
    4. Renato Duarte

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This manuscript puts forward a new idea that topography in neural networks helps to remove noise from inputs. The authors show that there is a critical level of topography that is needed for network to denoise inputs. At present, the analysis is limited to inputs that are constant in time.

    Reviewed by eLife