eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. SIRT2 protects against Japanese encephalitis virus infection in mice

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Perumal Arumugam Desingu
   2. Lavanya Dindi
   3. Krishnega Murugasamy
   4. Ankit Kumar Tamta
   5. Venketsubbu Ramasubbu
   6. Sukanya Raghu
   7. Amarjeet Shrama
   8. Raju S Rajmani
   9. Nagalingam R Sundaresan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study explores the role of SIRT2 in regulating Japanese encephalitis virus replication and disease progression in rodent models. The findings presented are novel as sirtuins are known for their roles in aging, metabolism, and cell survival, but have not been studied in the context of viral infections until recently. The evidence supporting the claims is solid, although additional experiments to further characterize the clinical outcomes and directly test the link between acetylated NF-kB and SIRT2 expression would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to biologists studying viruses, sirtuins, and inflammation.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Doubling dolutegravir dosage reduces the viral reservoir in ART-treated people with HIV

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Céline Fombellida-Lopez
   2. Aurelija Valaitienė
   3. Lee Winchester
   4. Nathalie Maes
   5. Patricia Dellot
   6. Céline Vanwinge
   7. Aurélie Ladang
   8. Etienne Cavalier
   9. Fabrice Susin
   10. Dolores Vaira
   11. Marie-Pierre Hayette
   12. Catherine Reenaers
   13. Michel Moutschen
   14. Courtney V Fletcher
   15. Alexander O Pasternak
   16. Gilles Darcis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study tested whether several months of dolutegravir intensification alters the size of the HIV reservoir as well as immune activation in individuals already on suppressive ART. While the general study approach is appropriate and the paper is well written, the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is incomplete. The title of the paper is only partially supported by the data, based on specific issues with the study design and analysis plan highlighted by Reviewer 1. Specifically, the primary study outcomes were not clearly described a priori, the plausibility of a biologic effect is uncertain based on lack of a consistent effect across participants, and sample size is small. Given a possible observed partial effect and relevant hypothesis, this approach warrants study in a larger trial.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Species biology and demographic history determines species vulnerability to climate change in tropical island endemic birds

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Ratnesh Karjee
   2. Vikram Iyer
   3. Durbadal Chatterjee
   4. Rajasri Ray
   5. Kritika M Garg
   6. Balaji Chattopadhyay

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Tropical single-island endemic bird populations are particularly vulnerable to climate change. The authors investigate genetic evidence of how such species dealt with climate changes in the past as a possible predictor for how they will respond to change in the future, which could provide an important example for the fields of conservation genetics and island biogeography. The authors' integration of genomics and habitat modeling is commendable, but we find that the support for their conclusions is incomplete: at times, the results presented appear to contradict each other, the authors do not fully account for key variables, and the limited taxonomic scope may cause problematic biases for the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Cancer cells differentially modulate mitochondrial respiration to alter redox state and enable biomass synthesis in nutrient-limited environments

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Sarah M Chang
   2. Muhammad Bin Munim
   3. Sonia E Trojan
   4. Anna Shevzov-Zebrun
   5. Keene L Abbott
   6. Matthew G Vander Heiden

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable findings on the relationship between nutrient availability and NAD/NADH levels, which in turn regulate biomass production in cancer cells. The authors provide solid evidence to support their claims, offering insight into why it is difficult to predict which nutrients limit cancer cell growth: both cell type and nutrient availability together determine the oxidative capacity that constrains the synthesis of various metabolic intermediates. The manuscript will be of interest to researchers working in cancer and cell metabolism.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Epidermal Resident Memory T Cell Fitness Requires Antigen Encounter in the Skin

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Eric S. Weiss
   2. Toshiro Hirai
   3. Haiyue Li
   4. Andrew Liu
   5. Shannon Baker
   6. Ian Magill
   7. Jacob Gillis
   8. Youran R. Zhang
   9. Torben Ramcke
   10. Kazuo Kurihara
   11. The ImmGen Consortium OpenSource T cell Project
   12. David Masopust
   13. Niroshana Anandasabapathy
   14. Harinder Singh
   15. David Zemmour
   16. Laura K. Mackay
   17. Daniel H. Kaplan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Weiss et al. provide important new insights and convincing evidence to further our mechanistic understanding of how antigen presentation shapes skin persistence of CD8+ TRM. Using a mouse model for inducible genetic ablation of transforming growth factor beta receptor 3 (TGFBR3) in CD8+ T cells, they demonstrate TGFBR3's role in regulating CD8+ TRM persistence in skin. Furthermore, they show that the strength of T cell receptor (TCR) engagement upon initial CD8+ TRM skin seeding has a positive influence on subsequent TRM expansion following a secondary antigen-reencounter. Together, these mechanisms add to our understanding of how the skin CD8+ T cell repertoire is dynamically responsive to topical antigen.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Individuality transfer: Predicting human decision-making across tasks

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Hiroshi Higashi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful framework to extract the individuality index to predict subjects' behavior in the target tasks. However, the evidence supporting such a framework is somewhat incomplete and would benefit from overall framing and clarity on its approaches. Overall, this study would be of interest to cognitive and AI researchers who work on cognitive models in general.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. When do measured representational distances reflect the neural representational geometry?

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Veronica Bossio Botero
   2. Nikolaus Kriegeskorte

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript makes important contributions to the methodology commonly used to assess representational structures in human and animal brain activity recorded using various techniques (especially fMRI). The evidence in the form of mathematical analysis and simulations is solid. The impact of this contribution could be improved by extending the simulations to assess the effects of violations of explicit and implicit assumptions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Perinatal environmental enrichment affects murine neonates’ brain structure before their active engagement with environment

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Malte S. Kaller
   2. Clémence Ligneul
   3. Rylan Allemang-Grand
   4. Tie Yuan Zhang
   5. Jacob Ellegood
   6. Michael Meaney
   7. Jason P. Lerch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study that combines replications of findings and novel detailed MRI investigations to assess the impact of environmental enrichment and maternal behavior on mice brain structure at different stages of development. The results and evidence supporting the conclusions are convincing, but in detail, the interpretation is challenging, in particular due to inter-individual and inter-litter variability. The extent to which maternal care mediates the impact of enrichment on brain development during the perinatal period also remains unclear because behavior was observed only during short periods, and the performed analyses are still incomplete. This study will nevertheless be of significant interest to neuroscientists and researchers interested in neurodevelopment in relation to environmental factors because of its in-depth use of MRI to study brain plasticity in mice.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Erythrocytosis-inducing PHD2 mutations implicate biological role for N-terminal prolyl-hydroxylation in HIF1α oxygen-dependent degradation domain

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Cassandra C Taber
   2. Wenguang He
   3. Geneviève MC Gasmi-Seabrook
   4. Mia Hubert
   5. Fraser G Ferens
   6. Mitsuhiko Ikura
   7. Jeffery E Lee
   8. Michael Ohh

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, Taber et al used a battery of biophysical and structural approaches to characterize the impact of erythrocytosis-related mutations in prolyl hydroxylase domain protein 2 (PHD2). The authors show that PHD2 mutant proteins are destabilized, thus supporting the tenet that dysregulation of PHD2/hypoxia induced factor (HIF) axis underpins erythrocytosis, while providing incomplete evidence that N-terminal ODD prolyl hydroxylation of HIF is indispensable for these phenotypes. Notwithstanding that this study was found to be of broad interest for a variety of fields focusing on oxygen sensing in homeostasis and pathological states, resolving inconsistencies in the biophysical analysis (e.g., NMR, SEC, and BLI/MST) was thought to be warranted to further corroborate the proposed model.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. FMRP Regulates Neuronal RNA Granules Containing Stalled Ribosomes, Not Where Ribosomes Stall

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Jewel T-Y Li
    2. Mehdi Amiri
    3. Senthilkumar Kailasam
    4. Jingyu Sun
    5. Nahum Sonenberg
    6. Joaquin Ortega
    7. Wayne S Sossin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Based on several lines of interesting data, the authors conclude that FMRP, though associated with stalled ribosomes, does not determine the position on the mRNAs at which ribosomes stall. Although this conclusion would be valuable if clearly established, the current set of data are incomplete and it is unclear if the methodologies applied in this paper are fully adequate to address this gap.

    Reviewed by eLife