Research Articles

Research Articles published by eLife are full-length studies that present important breakthroughs across the life sciences and biomedicine. There is no maximum length and no limits on the number of display items.

Latest articles

    1. Neuroscience

    Hugin-AstA circuitry is a novel central energy sensor that directly regulates sweet sensation in Drosophila and mouse

    Wusa Qin, Tingting Song ... Rui Huang
    A conserved neuropeptidergic circuit directly links internal glucose levels to sweet taste sensitivity, providing a central mechanism for coupling metabolic state to feeding behavior.
    1. Neuroscience

    Auditory perception and neural representation of temporal features are altered by age but not by cochlear synaptopathy

    Friederike Steenken, Rainer Beutelmann ... Georg M Klump
    In aging gerbils, compromised temporal fine structure perception is explained by a more prominent representation in auditory nerve fibers of temporal fluctuations of the signal envelope, rather than by synaptopathy.
    1. Physics of Living Systems

    Collective epithelial migration mediated by the unbinding of hexatic defects

    Dimitrios Krommydas, Livio N Carenza, Luca Giomi
    Theoretical and computational analyses demonstrate that cell intercalation within epithelial cell layers is analogous to the unbinding of topological defects in hexatic liquid crystals, offering a framework for calculating cellular forces and velocities during collective migration.
    1. Neuroscience
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    Human adherent cortical organoids in a multi-well format

    Mark van der Kroeg, Sakshi Bansal ... Femke MS de Vrij
    Human stem cell-derived adherent cortical organoids in 384-well plates provide a reproducible, long-term cortical organoid platform with neurons, glia, and robust network activity, enabling scalable disease modeling and therapeutic screening.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Investments in photoreceptors compete with investments in optics to determine eye design

    Francisco JH Heras, Simon B Laughlin
    Allocating space, materials and energy to an eye's optics and photoreceptor array is a major factor in eye design that explains obvious differences between simple eyes and compound eyes.
    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Cell Biology

    Mitochondrial ETF insufficiency drives neoplastic growth by selectively optimizing cancer bioenergetics

    David Papadopoli, Ranveer Palia ... Ivan Topisirovic
    Downregulation of the electron transfer flavoprotein dehydrogenase drives pro-tumorigenic metabolic programs via stimulating the mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 signaling across a broad spectrum of cancers.
    1. Plant Biology

    Herbivorous insects independently evolved salivary effectors to regulate plant immunity by destabilizing the malectin-LRR RLP NtRLP4

    Xin Wang, Jia-Bao Lu ... Hai-Jian Huang
    Salivary effectors from whiteflies and planthoppers have convergently evolved to undermine RLP4-mediated plant immunity.
    1. Genetics and Genomics

    Adapting clinical chemistry plasma as a source for liquid biopsies

    Spencer C Ding, Jingru Yu ... Wei Gu
    Residual plasma from rapid routine clinical chemistry tubes enables cell-free DNA NGS-based analysis, providing an untapped, scalable, and accessible resource without specialized collection workflows.
    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    RadD from Fusobacterium nucleatum engages NKp46 to promote antitumor cytotoxicity

    Ahmed Rishiq, Johanna Galski ... Ofer Mandelboim
    RadD recognition by NKp46 converts Fusobacterium nucleatum from an immune-evasive pathogen into a trigger of natural killer cell-mediated tumor control in a context-dependent manner.
    1. Neuroscience

    On-demand seizures facilitate rapid screening of therapeutics for epilepsy

    Yuzhang Chen, Brian Litt ... Hajime Takano
    An on-demand seizure model in chronically epileptic mice integrates reliability and etiological relevance, providing a mechanistically grounded, efficient platform for evaluating pharmacological interventions.