eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Sublytic gasdermin-D pores captured in atomistic molecular simulations

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Stefan L Schaefer
   2. Gerhard Hummer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper will be of interest to cell biologists, structural biologists, and biophysicists studying programmed cell death, membrane transport, and protein-lipid interactions. The simulation data presented offers atomistic detail of how gasdermin-D N-terminal domains assemble on the plasma membrane and trigger the formation of membrane pores which lead to pyroptosis. The study is well designed and the resulting data are rigorously analyzed; however, some clarifications and additional data are required to fully justify the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Mcm2 promotes stem cell differentiation via its ability to bind H3-H4

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Xiaowei Xu
   2. Xu Hua
   3. Kyle Brown
   4. Xiaojun Ren
   5. Zhiguo Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript reports a novel role of Mcm2 licensing factor and helicase subunit of the Mcm2-Mcm7 complex in the differentiation of embryonic stem cells into neuronal lineages. A series of compelling experimental manipulations dissect the abnormalities in the formation of heterochromatin at pluripotent genes and the resolution of bivalent chromatin domains at lineage-specific genes in differentiation in response to mutation of the histone binding domain of Mcm2. These findings provide new insights into the replication-independent roles of Mcm2. This paper will be of interest to scientists working on development and embryonal cell differentiation.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Sensory conflict disrupts circadian rhythms in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Cory A Berger
   2. Ann M Tarrant

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Understanding the integration and contribution of different combinations of environmental cues to the synchronization of the daily oscillator is important, because it provides insight into how organisms might be able to distinguish (and weight) between irregular (or in the tidal zone highly complex) versus regular individual daily changes of light and temperature. The study, which is thoroughly conducted and provides an impressive amount of experimental and analytical work, dissects the effects of sensory conflict on behavior and gene expression rhythms.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Neuronal temperature perception induces specific defenses that enable C. elegans to cope with the enhanced reactivity of hydrogen peroxide at high temperature

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Francesco A Servello
   2. Rute Fernandes
   3. Matthias Eder
   4. Nathan Harris
   5. Olivier MF Martin
   6. Natasha Oswal
   7. Anders Lindberg
   8. Nohelly Derosiers
   9. Piali Sengupta
   10. Nicholas Stroustrup
   11. Javier Apfeld

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The ability of organisms to cope with environmental stressors can be modified by their physiological conditions as well as life experience. Here, taking advantage of the tractability of the nematode C. elegans, the authors find that exposure to elevated temperatures enhances defenses against peroxides, agents whose toxicity is enhanced by temperature. The finding that a key thermosensory neuron is required for this phenomenon is an important advance in understanding the underlying mechanism; further, the authors' proposal that this is an "enhancer sensing" phenomenon is interesting and thought-provoking. The multidisciplinary approach and mechanistic detail revealed by this work will make it of interest to readers in the fields of sensory biology, signal transduction, and physiology.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Little skate genome provides insights into genetic programs essential for limb-based locomotion

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. DongAhn Yoo
   2. Junhee Park
   3. Chul Lee
   4. Injun Song
   5. Young Ho Lee
   6. Tery Yun
   7. Hyemin Lee
   8. Adriana Heguy
   9. Jae Yong Han
   10. Jeremy S Dasen
   11. Heebal Kim
   12. Myungin Baek

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript provides an improved version of the little skate genome, which will be of great interest to the field of comparative genomics and evolutionary biology. The authors use the genome to compare gene expression and chromatin accessibility profiles in motor neurons of the little skate and other species (mouse, chicken), aiming to predict conserved and divergent gene regulatory mechanisms underlying motor neuron development. While the manuscript contributes a valuable resource to the field, more rigorous analyses and experimental validation are needed to support the major claims of this study.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Alternative splicing downstream of EMT enhances phenotypic plasticity and malignant behavior in colon cancer

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Tong Xu
   2. Mathijs Verhagen
   3. Rosalie Joosten
   4. Wenjie Sun
   5. Andrea Sacchetti
   6. Leonel Munoz Sagredo
   7. Véronique Orian-Rousseau
   8. Riccardo Fodde

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides a valuable analysis of the splicing landscape in colon cancer cells that have properties intermediate between those typically found in primary cancers ("epithelial") and those that are spreading by metastasis ("mesenchymal"). The strength of evidence provided is wide ranging and convincing, and supports current ideas that changes in the way that RNA from particular genes is processed plays a key role in cancer spread.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Visual and motor signatures of locomotion dynamically shape a population code for feature detection in Drosophila

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Maxwell H Turner
   2. Avery Krieger
   3. Michelle M Pang
   4. Thomas R Clandinin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript investigates how the fly visual system can encode specific features in the presence of self-generated motion. Using volumetric imaging, it explores the encoding of visual features in population activity in the Drosophila visual glomeruli - a set of visual "feature detectors". Through an elegant combination of neural imaging, visual stimulus manipulations, and behavioral analysis, it demonstrates that two different mechanisms, one based on motor signals and one based on visual input, serve to suppress local features during movements that would corrupt these features. The results of this study open up future directions to determine how motor and visual signals are integrated into visual processing at the level of neural circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Asymmetric retinal direction tuning predicts optokinetic eye movements across stimulus conditions

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Scott C Harris
   2. Felice A Dunn

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work offers fundamental insights into how asymmetric behavioral features in optokinetic eye movements can be predicted from visual responses of direction-selective neurons in the retina. The electrophysiological experiments and model-based analyses are carefully performed and offer convincing conclusions. The presentation could improve in clarity for a stronger focus on the most important results.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A Multi-Tissue Comparison and Molecular Characterization of Canine Organoids

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Christopher Zdyrski
   2. Vojtech Gabriel
   3. Oscar Ospina
   4. Hannah Wickham
   5. Dipak K. Sahoo
   6. Kimberly Dao
   7. Leeann S. Aguilar Meza
   8. Abigail Ralston
   9. Leila Bedos
   10. William Bastian
   11. Sydney Honold
   12. Pablo Piñeyro
   13. Eugene F. Douglass
   14. Jonathan P. Mochel
   15. Karin Allenspach

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Organoids mimic the architecture and function of their cognate organs and have potential as replacements for animal models. Here the authors generated canine organoids from multiple adult tissues, including endometrium, lung, and pancreas, in addition to previously generated organoids from the kidney, bladder, and liver. However more methodological detail and functional characterization are required before this toolbox can be optimally utilized by wider scientific community.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Improved ANAP incorporation and VCF analysis reveal details of P2X7 current facilitation and a limited conformational interplay between ATP binding and the intracellular ballast domain

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Anna Durner
    2. Ellis Durner
    3. Annette Nicke

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This manuscript constitutes an important foray into the conformational rearrangements throughout various domains of the notoriously difficult-to-study P2X7 receptor, with a focus on the enigmatic intracellular 'ballast' domain. This is of broad interest to those studying the role of enzymatically active intracellular domains of membrane proteins. The authors provide convincing evidence that the ballast domain is unlikely to undergo major conformational changes upon ATP-induced gating, but additional experimental support is required on the facilitation process and to elucidate the consequences exerted by intracellular factors.

    Reviewed by eLife