eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Effects of Arginine Vasopressin on Islet Cells in Pancreatic Tissue Slices: Glucose-Dependent Modulation of IP3 Receptor-Specific Responses

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Jasmina Kerčmar
   2. Nastja Murko
   3. Lidija Križančić Bombek
   4. Eva Paradiž Leitgeb
   5. Johannes Pfabe
   6. Sandra Postić
   7. Ya-Chi Huang
   8. Andraž Stožer
   9. Dean Korošak
   10. Xaver Kozisek
   11. Monika Perisic
   12. Markus Muttenthaler
   13. Christian W Gruber
   14. Marjan Slak Rupnik

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful finding on the effects of arginine vasopressin (AVP) on islet cells in pancreatic tissue slices, using technically sophisticated spatio-temporal calcium recordings to confirm that AVP influences α and β cells differently depending on glucose concentrations. While the study’s methods – particularly the calcium imaging techniques and peptide ligand design targeting V1b receptors – are strong, the reviewers were concerned about several aspects of the experimental design. The results on β-cell responses are incomplete and insufficient to support the manuscript’s claims, especially due to the high variability of islet responses and lack of mechanistic and functional (hormone release) data. There are also concerns about the possibility of off-target effects and suboptimal receptor specificity: the study would be significantly strengthened by inclusion of signaling pathway interrogation, hormone output assays, genetic validation (e.g., β cell-specific deletion of V1br), and receptor localization. The work will still be of interest to researchers studying islet physiology in the context of health and diabetes.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Identifying a novel mechanism of L-leucine uptake in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a chemical genomic approach

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Nisheeth Agarwal
   2. Himanshu Gogoi
   3. Eeba
   4. Linus Augustin
   5. Md. Younus Khan
   6. Yashwant Kumar
   7. Sayan Kumar Bhowmick
   8. Bappaditya Dey

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     By performing a chemical screen of an FDA-approved library of small molecules against a leucine-dependent Mtb strain, this work discovered that semapimod inhibits Mtb growth by impairing leucine import. The work is useful because it connects leucine uptake with the cell wall lipids in Mtb; however, it remains incomplete as the evidence supporting semapimod's ability to target leucine uptake needs more substantial proof. The work requires significant experimental evidence to identify leucine transporter(s) and determine how PDIM participates in leucine uptake.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Temperature-based MHC class-I multimer peptide exchange for human HLA-A, B and C

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Cilia R Pothast
   2. Ian Derksen
   3. Anneloes van der Plas - van Duijn
   4. Angela el Hebieshy
   5. Wesley Huisman
   6. Kees LMC Franken
   7. Jacques Neefjes
   8. Jolien J Luimstra
   9. Marieke Griffioen
   10. Michel Kester
   11. Maarten H Vermeer
   12. Mirjam HM Heemskerk
   13. Ferenc A Scheeren

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents an alternative to conventional and UV-based tetramers, which are easy to use and reliable for the identification of antigen-specific CD8 T cells. The authors demonstrate that tetramers for HLA alleles A0301, A1101, B0702, and C0702 can be subjected to specific temperatures that facilitate peptide exchange, whilst maintaining structural integrity. Whilst the strength of the evidence is currently incomplete, further development and validation of this approach is likely to provide a useful alternative to generating reagents for examining T cell specificities.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Type I interferon responses contribute to immune protection against mycobacterial infection

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Andrea Szydlo-Shein
   2. Blanca Sanz-Magallón Duque de Estrada
   3. Joshua Rosenheim
   4. Carolin T Turner
   5. Aneesh Chandran
   6. Evdokia Tsaliki
   7. Marc CI Lipman
   8. Heinke Kunst
   9. Gabriele Pollara
   10. Philip M Elks
   11. Jean-Pierre Levraud
   12. Elspeth M Payne
   13. Mahdad Noursadeghi
   14. Gillian S Tomlinson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study shows a protective role of type 1 IFN during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. It shows that the type 1 IFN response in human skin TST inversely correlates with TB severity, suggesting its protective role. Considering that type I IFN is usually shown to be pro-pathogenic, the higher vulnerability of zebrafish larvae lacking stat2 to M marinum infection is a strong result. However, the conclusion that IFN-I is protective during mycobacterial infection remains indirect and incomplete; the study requires additional mechanistic insights and validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Synonymous mutations in AAV Rep enhance genome packaging in a library selection

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Tasfia Azim
   2. Dru Myerscough
   3. Jonathan J Silberg

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Engineering of adeno-associated virus (AAV) replication proteins may provide new insights into Parvoviral replication. The authors created a useful collection of Rep protein variants with changes that alter the amino acid sequence, but these did not lead to clear improvements in how the virus worked. Instead, their screen showed that changes that do not alter the protein ("synonymous" mutations) and changes to the promoter were more common. As it stands the results are incomplete due to potential issues with the screening design. We encourage a more complete characterization, which may enhance the translational potential of the approach.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Vascular endothelial-specific loss of TGF-beta signaling as a model for choroidal neovascularization and central nervous system vascular inflammation

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yanshu Wang
   2. Amir Rattner
   3. Zhongming Li
   4. Philip M Smallwood
   5. Jeremy Nathans

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Endothelial cell-specific loss of TGF-beta signaling in mice leads to CNS vascular defects, specifically impairing retinal development and promoting immune cell infiltration. The data are solid, showing that loss of TGF-beta signaling triggers vascular inflammation and attracts immune cells specific to CNS vasculature. These findings are important, highlighting TGF-beta's role in maintaining vascular-immune homeostasis and its therapeutic potential in neurovascular inflammatory diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Gut microbe-derived trimethylamine shapes circadian rhythms through the host receptor TAAR5

   This article has 27 authors:

   1. Kala K Mahen
   2. William J Massey
   3. Danny Orabi
   4. Amanda L Brown
   5. Thomas C Jaramillo
   6. Amy Burrows
   7. Anthony J Horak
   8. Sumita Dutta
   9. Marko Mrdjen
   10. Nour Mouannes
   11. Venkateshwari Varadharajan
   12. Lucas J Osborn
   13. Xiayan Ye
   14. Dante M Yarbrough
   15. Treg Grubb
   16. Natalie Zajczenko
   17. Rachel Hohe
   18. Rakhee Banerjee
   19. Pranavi Linga
   20. Dev Laungani
   21. Adeline M Hajjar
   22. Naseer Sangwan
   23. Mohammed Dwidar
   24. Jennifer A Buffa
   25. Garth R Swanson
   26. Zeneng Wang
   27. Jonathan Mark Brown

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents an important finding linking the bacterial metabolite trimethylamine and its receptor to circadian rhythms and olfaction. The current evidence supporting the claims of the authors is compelling. This work will be of broad interest to researchers interested in nutrition, microbial metabolism, circadian rhythms, and host-microbiome interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Sphingolipid imbalance aggravates tau pathology by endomembrane rigidification and rupture

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Jessica Tittelmeier
   2. Carl Alexander Sandhof
   3. Nicole Martin
   4. Deike El-Kabarity
   5. Soki-Bradel Ngonza-Nito
   6. Ronald Melki
   7. Carmen Nussbaum-Krammer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study addresses the role of sphingolipid metabolism in maintaining endolysosomal membrane integrity and its impact on tau pathology in Caenorhabditis elegans and human cell culture models. The methods are solid and the proposed mechanisms are conceivable. However, the current evidence is incomplete and could be strengthened, due to reliance on imaging data and insufficient biochemical validation. The work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and biologists working on Alzheimer's disease and related proteinopathies.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A geometric shape regularity effect in the human brain

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Mathias Sablé-Meyer
   2. Lucas Benjamin
   3. Cassandra Potier Watkins
   4. Chenxi He
   5. Maxence Pajot
   6. Théo Morfoisse
   7. Fosca Al Roumi
   8. Stanislas Dehaene

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important series of studies provides converging results from complementary neuroimaging and behavioral experiments to identify human brain regions involved in representing regular geometric shapes and their core features. Geometric shape concepts are present across diverse human cultures and possibly involved in human capabilities such as numerical cognition and mathematical reasoning. Identifying the brain networks involved in geometric shape representation is of broad interest to researchers studying human visual perception, reasoning, and cognition. The evidence supporting the presence of representation of geometric shape regularity in dorsal parietal and prefrontal cortex is solid, but does not directly demonstrate that these circuits overlap with those involved in mathematical reasoning. Furthermore, the links to defining features of geometric objects and with mathematical and symbolic reasoning would benefit from stronger evidence from more fine-tuned experimental tasks varying the stimuli and experience.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Membrane curvature regulates Ups1 dependent phosphatidic acid transfer across lipid bilayers

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Fereshteh Sadeqi
    2. Dexin Dong
    3. Kai Stroh
    4. Marian Vache
    5. Jutta Metz
    6. Dietmar Riedel
    7. Andreas Janshoff
    8. Herre Jelger Risselada
    9. Caroline Kolenda
    10. Michael Meinecke

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This fundamental study combines in vitro reconstitution experiments and molecular dynamics simulations to elucidate how membrane lipids are transported from the outer to the inner membrane of mitochondria. The authors provide convincing evidence that a positive membrane curvature is critical for membrane lipid extraction. The work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and biochemists.

    Reviewed by eLife