eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. CCDC32 stabilizes clathrin-coated pits and drives their invagination

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Ziyan Yang
   2. Changsong Yang
   3. Zheng Huang
   4. Peiliu Xu
   5. Yueping Li
   6. Lu Han
   7. Linyuan Peng
   8. Xiangying Wei
   9. John E Pak
   10. Tatyana Svitkina
   11. Sandra L Schmid
   12. Zhiming Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The manuscript presents a valuable finding that CCDC32, beyond its reported role in AP2 assembly, follows AP2 to the plasma membrane and regulates clathrin-coated pit assembly and dynamics. The authors further identify an alpha-helical region within CCDC32 that is essential for its interaction with AP2 and its cellular function. While live-cell and ultrastructural imaging data are solid, future biochemical studies will be needed to confirm the proposed CCDC32-AP2 interaction.

     [Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

   Reviewed by eLife, Review Commons

2. Systematic analysis of transcription factor combinatorial binding uncovers TEAD1 as an antagonist of tissue-specific transcription factors in human organogenesis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Araceli Garcia-Mora
   2. Joshua Mallen
   3. Peyman Zarrineh
   4. Neil Hanley
   5. Dave Gerrard
   6. Nicoletta Bobola

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents a pipeline for discovering cooperative transcription factor (TF) interactions that regulate development, and applies this pipeline in a systematic investigation of TF co-regulation in 11 human embryonic tissues. The authors provide overall solid bioinformatics and experimental support for their findings: although they make a convincing argument for the role of TEAD factors as co-repressors of regulatory activity with tissue-specific TFs, other aspects of the study would benefit from additional validation. This work would be of interest to cell biologists focused on development or on discovery of TF relationships.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Heterozygosity at a conserved candidate sex determination locus is associated with female development in the clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi)

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Kip D Lacy
   2. Jina Lee
   3. Kathryn Rozen-Gagnon
   4. Wei Wang
   5. Thomas S Carroll
   6. Daniel JC Kronauer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into the evolutionary conservation of sex determination mechanisms in ants by identifying a candidate sex-determining region in a parthenogenetic species. It uses solid, well-executed genomic analyses based on differences in heterozygosity between females and diploid males. While the candidate locus awaits functional validation in this species, the study provides convincing support for the ancient origin of a non-coding locus implicated in sex determination.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Material Damage to Multielectrode Arrays after Electrolytic Lesioning is in the Noise

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Alice Tor
   2. Stephen E Clarke
   3. Iliana E Bray
   4. Paul Nuyujukian
   5. the Brain Interfacing Laboratory

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful manuscript addresses a stability issue for long-term chronically implanted array recordings and electrolytic lesioning, which is relevant to both basic science and translational research. The authors provide a systematic scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of explanted arrays, evaluating electrode damage and sharing extensive datasets accessible through interactive plots. The strength of the evidence is solid, but it can be improved by performing additional analyses on complementary neurophysiology, functional, or histological data.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Theory of non-dilute binding and surface phase separation applied to membrane-binding proteins

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Xueping Zhao
   2. Daxiao Sun
   3. Giacomo Bartolucci
   4. Anthony A Hyman
   5. Alf Honigmann
   6. Christoph A Weber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents a compelling theoretical framework for understanding condensation or phase separation of membrane-bound proteins, with a focus on the organization of tight junction components. By incorporating non-dilute binding effects into thermodynamic models and validating the model's predictions with in vitro experiments on the tight junction protein ZO-1, the authors provide a quantitative tool that combines theory and experiments and will help researchers in the field quantitatively interpret their findings. Given that phase separation of membrane bound molecules is becoming key in signaling, spanning from immune signaling to cell-cell adhesion, this work will be of broad interest for cell biologists and biophysicists.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The oneirogen hypothesis: modeling the hallucinatory effects of classical psychedelics in terms of replay-dependent plasticity mechanisms

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Colin Bredenberg
   2. Fabrice Normandin
   3. Blake Richards
   4. Guillaume Lajoie

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper provides a useful new theory of the hallucinatory effects of 5-HT2A psychedelics. The authors present convincing evidence that a computational model trained with the Wake-Sleep algorithm can reproduce some features of hallucinations by varying the strength of top-down connections in the model, though it is not clear that this model applies to 5-HT2A hallucinogens in particular. The work will be of interest to researchers studying hallucinations or offline activity and plasticity more broadly.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Trial-level Representational Similarity Analysis

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Shenyang Huang
   2. Cortney M Howard
   3. Paul C Bogdan
   4. Ricardo Morales-Torres
   5. Matthew Slayton
   6. Roberto Cabeza
   7. Simon W Davis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study proposes a potentially useful improvement on a popular fMRI method for quantifying representational similarity in brain measurements by focusing on representational strength at the single trial level and adding linear mixed effects modeling for group-level inference. The manuscript provides solid evidence of increased sensitivity with no loss of precision compared to more classic versions of the method. However, several assumptions are insufficiently motivated, and it is unclear to what extent the approach would generalize to other paradigms.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Toward neuroanatomical and cognitive foundations of macaque social tolerance grades

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Sarah Silvère
   2. Julien Lamy
   3. Chrystelle Po
   4. Mathieu Legrand
   5. Jerome Sallet
   6. Sebastien Ballesta

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work compares the size of two brain areas, the amygdala and the hippocampus, across 12 species belonging to the Macaca genus. The authors find, using a convincing methodological approach, that amygdala - but not hippocampal - volume varies with social tolerance grade, with high tolerance species showing larger amygdala than low tolerance species of macaques. Interestingly, their findings also suggest an inverted developmental effect, with intolerant species showing an increase in amygdala volume across the lifespan, compared to tolerant species exhibiting the opposite trend. Overall, this paper offers new insights into the neural basis of social and emotional processing.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Coordinated spinal locomotor network dynamics emerge from cell-type-specific connectivity patterns

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. F David Wandler
   2. Benjamin K Lemberger
   3. David L McLean
   4. James M Murray

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, Wandler et al. provide convincing theoretical evidence for alternate mechanisms of rhythm generation by CPGs. Their model shows that cell-type-specific connectivity and an inhibitory drive could underlie rhythm generation. Excitatory input could act to enhance the frequency range of these rhythms. This modeling study could motivate further experimental investigation of these mechanisms to understand CPG rhythmogenesis.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A whole-animal phenotypic drug screen identifies suppressors of atherogenic lipoproteins

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Daniel J Kelpsch
    2. Liyun Zhang
    3. James H Thierer
    4. Kobe Koren
    5. Urmi Kumar
    6. Yuki Lin
    7. Monica R Hensley
    8. Mira Sohn
    9. Jun O Liu
    10. Thomas Lectka
    11. Jeff S Mumm
    12. Steven A Farber

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      In this important study, the authors have performed a zebrafish drug screen to identify suppressors of atherogenic lipoproteins. They utilize a well-established LipoGlo assay to find molecules that modulate these lipoproteins, identifying 49 potential hits. They perform some validation experiments, including studies linking enoxolone to its likely inhibitory effect on a specific transcription factor, HNF4alpha. Overall, the results are convincing and robust, and will open up new areas of exploration for those investigators interested in in vivo lipid biology.

    Reviewed by eLife