Evolutionary Biology

Novel multicellular prokaryote discovered next to an underground stream

1. Kouhei Mizuno
2. Mais Maree
3. Toshihiko Nagamura
4. Akihiro Koga
5. Satoru Hirayama
6. Soichi Furukawa
7. Kenji Tanaka
8. Kazuya Morikawa

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This is a fascinating article on the discovery of an unusual form of bacterial multicellularity: an organism that can exist in dense, filamentous multicellular structures and clusters of coccobacillus daughter cells. Experiments that mimic the periodic immersion that the bacteria experience in their natural cave environment suggest that water immersion plays a role in this life-cycle dynamics. This work, while rather qualitative, will nevertheless likely attract great interest from a diverse range of scientists working on multicellularity, the biophysics of cell packing, and geobiological problems.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase and low abundant ferredoxins support aerobic photomixotrophic growth in cyanobacteria

1. Yingying Wang
2. Xi Chen
3. Katharina Spengler
4. Karoline Terberger
5. Marko Boehm
6. Jens Appel
7. Thomas Barske
8. Stefan Timm
9. Natalia Battchikova
10. Martin Hagemann
11. Kirstin Gutekunst

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The work supports the hypothesis that novel specific enymes evolved to modify metabolic pathways, allowing phototrophs to shift from growth under photoautotrophic and photomixotrophic growth conditions.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Viral population genomics reveals host and infectivity impact on SARS-CoV-2 adaptive landscape

1. Kaitlyn Gayvert
2. Richard Copin
3. Sheldon McKay
4. Ian Setliff
5. Wei Keat Lim
6. Alina Baum
7. Christos A. Kyratsous
8. Gurinder S. Atwal

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Dynamic expedition of leading mutations in SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoproteins

1. Muhammad Hasan
2. Zhouyi He
3. Mengqi Jia
4. Alvin C.F. Leung
5. Kathiresan Natarajan
6. Wentao Xu
7. Shanqi Yap
8. Feng Zhou
9. Shihong Chen
10. Hailei Su
11. Kaicheng Zhu
12. Haibin Su

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Rapid longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 intra-host emergence of novel haplotypes regardless of immune deficiencies

1. Laura Manuto
2. Marco Grazioli
3. Andrea Spitaleri
4. Paolo Fontana
5. Luca Bianco
6. Luigi Bertolotti
7. Martina Bado
8. Giorgia Mazzotti
9. Federico Bianca
10. Francesco Onelia
11. Giovanni Lorenzin
12. Fabio Simeoni
13. Dejan Lazarevic
14. Elisa Franchin
15. Claudia Del Vecchio
16. Ilaria Dorigatti
17. Giovanni Tonon
18. Daniela Cirillo
19. Enrico Lavezzo
20. Andrea Crisanti
21. Stefano Toppo

Reviewed by ScreenIT

The rise and fall of SARS-CoV-2 variants and the mutational profile of Omicron

1. Tanner Wiegand
2. Aidan McVey
3. Anna Nemudraia
4. Artem Nemudryi
5. Blake Wiedenheft

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Genomic epidemiological models describe pathogen evolution across fitness valleys

1. Pablo Cárdenas
2. Vladimir Corredor
3. Mauricio Santos-Vega

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Genomic determinants of Furin cleavage in diverse European SARS-related bat coronaviruses

1. Anna-Lena Sander
2. Andres Moreira-Soto
3. Stoian Yordanov
4. Ivan Toplak
5. Andrea Balboni
6. Ramón Seage Ameneiros
7. Victor Corman
8. Christian Drosten
9. Jan Felix Drexler

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Evidence for a mouse origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

1. Changshuo Wei
2. Ke-Jia Shan
3. Weiguang Wang
4. Shuya Zhang
5. Qing Huan
6. Wenfeng Qian

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Connexins evolved after early chordates lost innexin diversity

1. Georg Welzel
2. Stefan Schuster

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper addresses the question of why invertebrates use innexins and vertebrates connexins to form gap junctions. The authors survey genomic data across animal diversity to search for innexins and connexins and analyse the distribution of glycosylation sites in the extracellular loops of these proteins. The reported data support the hypothesis that connexins replaced innexins in chordate gap junctions due to an evolutionary bottle neck. Overall, the data were properly analyzed, but could be improved with respect to the sequence data for some phyla and the discussion from the results obtained.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife