Evolutionary Biology

Positive epistasis for fitness under monosomy: Loss of ribosomal protein stoichiometry reduces the effects of other perturbations

1. Hanna Tutaj
2. Katarzyna Tomala
3. Adrian Pirog
4. Marzena Marszałek
5. Ryszard Korona

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study offers important insights into the generation and maintenance of monosomic yeast lines and is, to our knowledge, the first to evaluate gene expression in yeast monosomies. The research introduces an innovative method to assess epistasis between genes on the same chromosome, providing solid evidence for positive epistatic interactions affecting fitness. Although the authors have substantially improved the methodology and interpretation during revision, questions regarding the interpretation of the transcriptome data have not been completely addressed.

Reviewed by eLife

Selection on time to parasite transmission shapes the host Anopheles gambiae transcriptional response and suggests immune evasion

1. Luís M. Silva

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

A direct experimental test of Ohno’s hypothesis

1. Ljiljana Mihajlovic
2. Bharat Ravi Iyengar
3. Florian Baier
4. Içvara Barbier
5. Justyna Iwaszkiewicz
6. Vincent Zoete
7. Andreas Wagner
8. Yolanda Schaerli

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This fundamental study uses a creative experimental system to directly test Ohno's hypothesis, which describes how and why new genes might evolve by duplication of existing ones. In agreement with existing criticism of Ohno's original idea, the authors present compelling evidence that having two gene copies does not speed up the evolution of a new function as posited by Ohno, but instead leads to the rapid inactivation of one of the copies through the accumulation of mostly deleterious mutations. These findings will be of broad interest to evolutionary biologists and geneticists.

Reviewed by eLife, preLights

The impact of social complexity on the efficacy of natural selection in termites

1. Camille Roux
2. Alice Ha
3. Arthur Weyna
4. Morgan Lode
5. Jonathan Romiguier

Reviewed by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology

The evolutionary history of the ancient weevil family Belidae (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) reveals the marks of Gondwana breakup and major floristic turnovers, including the rise of angiosperms

1. Xuankun Li
2. Adriana E Marvaldi
3. Rolf G Oberprieler
4. Dave Clarke
5. Brian D Farrell
6. Andrea Sequeira
7. M Silvia Ferrer
8. Charles O’Brien
9. Shayla Salzman
10. Seunggwan Shin
11. William Tang
12. Duane D McKenna

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Through anchored phylogenomic analyses, this important study offers fresh insights into the evolutionary history of the plant diet and geographic distribution of Belidae weevil beetles. Employing robust methodological approaches, the authors propose that certain belid lineages have maintained a continuous association with Araucaria hosts since the Mesozoic era. Although the biogeographical analysis is somewhat limited by uncertainties in vicariance explanations, this convincing study enhances our understanding of Belidae's evolutionary dynamics and provides new perspectives on ancient community ecology.

Reviewed by eLife

Refining the resolution of the yeast genotype-phenotype map using single-cell RNA-sequencing

1. Arnaud N’Guessan
2. Wen Yuan Tong
3. Hamed Heydari
4. Alex N Nguyen Ba

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful study describes expression profiling by scRNA-seq of thousands of cells of recombinant yeast genotypes from a system that models natural genetic variation. The rigorous new method presented here shows promise for improving the efficiency of genotype-to-phenotype mapping in yeast, providing convincing evidence for its efficacy. This revised manuscript focuses on overcoming technical challenges with this approach and identifies several new biological insights that build upon the field of genotype-to-phenotype mapping, a central question of interest to geneticists and evolutionary biologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Experimental evolution of evolvability

1. Michael Barnett
2. Lena Zeller
3. Paul B. Rainey

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Prophage-encoded Hm-oscar gene recapitulates Wolbachia-induced male killing in the tea tortrix moth Homona magnanima

1. Hiroshi Arai
2. Susumu Katsuma
3. Noriko Matsuda-Imai
4. Shiou-Ruei Lin
5. Maki N Inoue
6. Daisuke Kageyama

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study, which implicates a specific Wolbachia gene in driving the male-killing phenotype in a moth, contributes to a growing body of literature from the authors in which they have nicely teased apart the loci responsible for male killing across diverse insects. Solid evidence supports the conclusions, though improvements to the statistical analysis for certain assays would strengthen the inferences further.

Reviewed by eLife

Pronounced expression of extracellular matrix proteoglycans regulated by Wnt pathway underlies the parallel evolution of lip hypertrophy in East African cichlids

1. Nagatoshi Machii
2. Ryo Hatashima
3. Tatsuya Niwa
4. Hideki Taguchi
5. Ismael A Kimirei
6. Hillary DJ Mrosso
7. Mitsuto Aibara
8. Tatsuki Nagasawa
9. Masato Nikaido

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this important study, the authors have partially revealed the mechanism behind lip thickening in cichlid fishes, which has evolved independently across three lakes in Africa. To explore this phenomenon, the authors utilized histological comparison, proteomics, and transcriptomics, all of which are well suited for their objectives. With convincing evidence, this contribution holds significant value for the field.

Reviewed by eLife

On the discovered Cancer Driving Nucleotides (CDNs)–Distributions across genes, cancer types and patients

1. Lingjie Zhang
2. Tong Deng
3. Zhongqi Liufu
4. Xiangnyu Chen
5. Shijie Wu
6. Xueyu Liu
7. Changhao Shi
8. Bingjie Chen
9. Zheng Hu
10. Qichun Cai
11. Chenli Liu
12. Mengfeng Li
13. Miles E. Tracy
14. Xuemei Lu
15. Chung-I Wu
16. Haijun Wen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study is a companion to a paper introducing a theoretical framework and methodology for identifying Cancer Driving Nucleotides (CDNs). While the evidence that recurrent SNVs or CDNs are common in true cancer driver genes is solid, the evidence that many more undiscovered cancer driver mutations will have CDNs, and that this approach could identify these undiscovered driver genes with about 100,000 samples, is limited.

Reviewed by eLife