eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Cross-talk between red blood cells and plasma influences blood flow and omics phenotypes in severe COVID-19

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Steffen M Recktenwald
   2. Greta Simionato
   3. Marcelle GM Lopes
   4. Fabia Gamboni
   5. Monika Dzieciatkowska
   6. Patrick Meybohm
   7. Kai Zacharowski
   8. Andreas von Knethen
   9. Christian Wagner
   10. Lars Kaestner
   11. Angelo D'Alessandro
   12. Stephan Quint

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This report illustrates the marked alteration of red blood cell (RBC) morphology that occurs with COVID-19 infection. Of particular importance is the observation that RBC morphology is dramatically affected whether cells are suspended in plasma from healthy vs COVID-infected blood. The claims of the manuscript are well supported by the data, and the approaches used are thoughtful and rigorous. The results are important for consideration of the broader pathophysiology of COVID-19, particularly with regard to the impact on vascular biology.

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

2. Relating pathogenic loss-of-function mutations in humans to their evolutionary fitness costs

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ipsita Agarwal
   2. Zachary L Fuller
   3. Simon R Myers
   4. Molly Przeworski

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper directly estimates the fitness cost of loss-of-function mutations in almost every gene in the human genome, providing an interpretable measure of the severity of mutations. The authors then compare datasets of presumably healthy individuals and individuals affected by severe complex disorders or genetic disorders, finding enrichment of de novo loss-of-function mutations in highly constrained genes among probands alongside other illuminating results. This important study will be useful to researchers interested in interpreting and prioritizing disease-causing mutations and in the process of human evolution. Overall, the approach is elegant and the results are of high quality and compelling.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. A genetic variant of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) exacerbates hormone-mediated orexigenic feeding in mice

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Georgia Balsevich
   2. Gavin N Petrie
   3. Daniel E Heinz
   4. Arashdeep Singh
   5. Robert J Aukema
   6. Avery C Hunker
   7. Haley A Vecchiarelli
   8. Hiulan Yau
   9. Martin Sticht
   10. Roger J Thompson
   11. Francis S Lee
   12. Larry S Zweifel
   13. Prasanth K Chelikani
   14. Nils C Gassen
   15. Matthew N Hill

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this manuscript, the authors address the variable results and data regarding the role of the FAAH variant (C385A at the nucleotide level and P129T at the protein level) in the control of feeding. The authors hypothesize that the variable results might be due to the environmental context, specifically stress related conditions. They designed studies to address the role of glucocorticoids in regulating feeding and metabolism.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Object representation in a gravitational reference frame

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Alexandriya MX Emonds
   2. Ramanujan Srinath
   3. Kristina J Nielsen
   4. Charles E Connor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this study the authors show that neural tuning for object orientation in IT is unaffected by whole-body tilt, suggesting that neurons are encoding objects relative to the gravitational vertical. However, these observations could also be because IT neurons may encode object orientation relative to cues and not due to gravity, or due to dynamic, compensatory torsional eye movements made by the animals. With these concerns adequately addressed, this would be an important study showing that IT neurons may play a role not only in object recognition but more broadly in physical scene understanding.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. lncRNA H19/Let7b/EZH2 axis regulates somatic cell senescence

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Manali Potnis
   2. Justin Do
   3. Olivia El Naggar
   4. Eishi Noguchi
   5. Christian Sell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this manuscript, Sell et al., investigate the role of the long non-coding RNA H19 in regulating cellular senescence. Using several cell models they identify upstream and downstream effectors of H19 including let-7 and EZH2. The advances in this work include the identification of a specific cascade of factors connecting H19, senescence and the actions of rapamycin.

   Reviewed by eLife, ASAPbio crowd review

6. Transiently heritable fates and quorum sensing drive early IFN-I response dynamics

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Laura C Van Eyndhoven
   2. Vincent PG Verberne
   3. Carlijn VC Bouten
   4. Abhyudai Singh
   5. Jurjen Tel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding that adds to a growing body of evidence reporting heritable cell states that can guide fate choices in single cells, in this case the fate of early IFN-I response. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although testing the generalizability of the result to other cell types or contexts and strengthening the link to epigenetic regulation would have strengthened the study. Overall, this work will be of interest to a wide set of scientists, including cell biologists, immunologists, and systems biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Structures of ferroportin in complex with its specific inhibitor vamifeport

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Elena Farah Lehmann
   2. Márton Liziczai
   3. Katarzyna Drożdżyk
   4. Patrick Altermatt
   5. Cassiano Langini
   6. Vania Manolova
   7. Hanna Sundstrom
   8. Franz Dürrenberger
   9. Raimund Dutzler
   10. Cristina Manatschal

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reports cryo-EM structures of human ferroportin (FPN), a protein essential for iron transport in humans. This manuscript will be of interest to researchers studying membrane transport mechanisms as well as to those interested in drug design. The structures detail interactions between FPN and the small-molecule inhibitor vamifeport, which is currently in clinical trials for sickle cell disease, and ta new (occluded) protein conformation that is stabilized by a sybody (a nanobody selected from a synthetic library) is identified. Evidence for the mechanism of inhibition by vamifeport is convincing, but evidence for the physiological relevance of the occluded conformation is still incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Fan cells in lateral entorhinal cortex directly influence medial entorhinal cortex through synaptic connections in layer 1

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Brianna Vandrey
   2. Jack Armstrong
   3. Christina M Brown
   4. Derek LF Garden
   5. Matthew F Nolan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work reveals a novel direct projection from the lateral entorhinal cortex to the medial entorhinal cortex. Using multiple techniques, the authors provide compelling evidence that fan cells from the lateral entorhinal cortex project to superficial neurons in the medial entorhinal cortex. This newly identified connection may support the combination of spatial inputs with sensory or high-order signals, providing novel insight into potentially how the 'what' (lateral entorhinal cortex) and 'where' (medial entorhinal cortex) features of memory are incorporated.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Drosophila SUMM4 complex couples insulator function and DNA replication control

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Evgeniya N Andreyeva
   2. Alexander V Emelyanov
   3. Markus Nevil
   4. Lu Sun
   5. Elena Vershilova
   6. Christina A Hill
   7. Michael-C Keogh
   8. Robert J Duronio
   9. Arthur I Skoultchi
   10. Dmitry V Fyodorov

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper will be of interest to those studying DNA replication in the context of chromatin and development. This important study uncovers a new interaction partner for the chromatin protein SuUR and tries to understand how this complex (SUMM4) functions to control under-replication in polytene chromosomes. While the experiments are of high quality and carefully controlled, the data currently do not fully support all the conclusions, particularly as they relate to conclusions about DNA replication timing.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Generating colorblind-friendly scatter plots for single-cell data

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Tejas Guha
    2. Elana J Fertig
    3. Atul Deshpande

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This manuscript is extremely useful for describing an R package that provides a valuable pattern and overlay framework for producing colorblind-friendly scatter plots for the field. The utility of this tool for making plots more accessible was demonstrated compellingly. This work will be of broad interest to many biomedical scientists, especially to viewers with color-vision deficiency.

    Reviewed by eLife