eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. An IL-21R hypomorph circumvents functional redundancy to define STAT1 signaling in germinal center responses

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Christoph Jandl
   2. Joanna Warren
   3. Samantha Owens
   4. Marcel Batten
   5. Howard Wang
   6. Cecile King

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     IL21R, being a key cytokine receptor for shaping the T follicular helper and B cell functions, utilizes two STAT family members, STAT1 and STAT3. The authors utilize the IL21R ENU-induced mutant, together with relevant in vitro and in vivo experiments, to dissect the function of STAT1 and STAT3. The approach by itself sounds reasonable, but the main conclusions are incompletely supported by the data presented in this manuscript.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Alpha-Band Phase Modulates Perceptual Sensitivity by Changing Internal Noise and Sensory Tuning

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. April Pilipenko
   2. Alexandra Mcgowan
   3. Jason Samaha

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study explores how the phase of neural oscillations in the alpha band affects visual perception, indicating that perceptual performance varies due to changes in sensory precision rather than decision bias. The evidence is solid in its experimental design and analytical approach, although the limited sample size restricts the generalizability of the findings. This work should interest cognitive neuroscientists who study perception and decision-making.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Deep learning-driven characterization of single cell tuning in primate visual area V4 supports topological organization

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Konstantin F. Willeke
   2. Kelli Restivo
   3. Katrin Franke
   4. Arne F. Nix
   5. Santiago A. Cadena
   6. Tori Shinn
   7. Cate Nealley
   8. Gabrielle Rodriguez
   9. Saumil Patel
   10. Alexander S. Ecker
   11. Fabian H. Sinz
   12. Andreas S. Tolias

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses a key, long-standing question about how visual feature selectivity is organized in mid-level visual cortex, using an ambitious combination of large-scale neural recordings and image synthesis. It provides important insights into the complexity of single-neuron selectivity and suggests a structured organization across cortical depth. While the evidence is generally solid and technically impressive, several key claims would be strengthened by additional controls, particularly regarding the sources of similarity across neurons and the dependence of the results on modeling choices.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Magnesium isoglycyrrhizinate alleviates alcohol-associated liver disease through targeting HSD11B1

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Lu Xiao
   2. Lu Li
   3. Shasha Wu
   4. Zhaoyi Che
   5. Yuyang Du
   6. Jingyi Zheng
   7. Jingsong Yan
   8. Hao Wang
   9. Hong Zhang
   10. Yan Li
   11. Jia Xiao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reports characterisation of hepatocyte molecular pathways affected by a glycyrrhizin derivative in both in vivo and in vitro mouse models of alcohol-associated liver disease. The authors show convincing evidence indicating that IPP delta isomerase 1 (Idi1) is an intermediate in these pharmacological effects, via the binding of the glycyrrhizin derivative to an upstream regulator of Idi1, HSD11B1, although some more quantitative analyses and better organisation of data would strengthen the study. The findings would be of interest to immunologists and pharmacologists interested in liver inflammation and its amelioration.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Single-step in vitro ribosome reconstitution mediated by two GTPase factors, EngA and ObgE

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Aya Sato
   2. Weng Yu Lai
   3. Yusuke Sakai
   4. Yoshihiro Shimizu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a useful study presenting solid data indicating that the bacterial GTPases EngA and ObgE enable single-step reconstitution of functional 50S ribosomal subunits under near-physiological conditions. The study elegantly bridges the gap between the non-physiological aspects of the previous two-step reconstitution method and the extract-dependent iSAT system to enable ribosome assembly under translation-compatible conditions; however, it is limited by reliance on rRNA and proteins extracted from native ribosomes and does not achieve a true bottom-up reconstruction from all synthetic components. The evidence is incomplete in not characterizing the spectrum of reporter polypeptides produced and not comparing their rate and yield of synthesis from reconstituted ribosomes to that obtained with pure native ribosomes; and the impact of the study is limited by not including reporters to examine the fidelity of initiation, elongation or termination achieved with the reconstituted ribosomes.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Paternal over- and under-nutrition program fetal and placental development in a sex-specific manner in mice

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Hannah L. Morgan
   2. Nader Eid
   3. Nadine Holmes
   4. Matthew Carlile
   5. Sonal Henson
   6. Fei Sang
   7. Victoria Wright
   8. Marcos Castellanos-Uribe
   9. Iqbal Khan
   10. Nazia Nazar
   11. Sean T. May
   12. Rod T. Mitchell
   13. Federica Lopes
   14. Robert S. Robinson
   15. Augusto A. Coppi
   16. Vipul Batra
   17. Adam J. Watkins

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study demonstrates that paternal diet influences not only testicular morphology but also placental and fetal development, supporting a role for paternal contributions to offspring health. The authors combine transcriptomic and histological analyses across multiple tissues, and the evidence supporting the central conclusions is convincing. While aspects of the paternal gut phenotype remain largely descriptive, and the paternal and fetoplacental findings are discussed separately, clearer integration of these elements and additional methodological clarification would strengthen interpretation.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Distinct chromatin regulators downmodulate meiotic axis protein deposition and DNA break induction at chromosome ends

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Adhithi R. Raghavan
   2. Kieron May
   3. Vijayalakshmi V. Subramanian
   4. Hannah G. Blitzblau
   5. Neem J. Patel
   6. Jonathan Houseley
   7. Andreas Hochwagen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable paper describes the regulation of the association of meiotic chromosome axis proteins on chromosome ends with sub-telomeric elements in budding yeast. The genome-wide analyses of binding of chromosome components as well as chromatin regulators, complemented with the mapping of meiotic DNA double-strand breaks on chromosome ends, provided incomplete evidence to support the authors' conclusion. The results in the paper are of interest to researchers in meiotic recombination and the structure of genomes and chromosomes.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Linking Germline Telomere Removal to Global Programmed DNA Elimination in Tetrahymena Genome Differentiation

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kohei Nagao
   2. Kazufumi Mochizuki

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reveals intriguing connections between chromosome breakage and DNA elimination during programmed genome rearrangement in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila. By developing a novel FISH approach that distinguishes germline and somatic telomeres, the authors provide compelling evidence that chromosome breakage removes germline telomeres along with hundreds of kilobases of germline-limited sequences. By disrupting a single chromosome breakage site, they further showed that DNA elimination was globally affected, which opens up a new direction for mechanistic studies. Thus, this work reveals additional similarity between the programmed DNA elimination in ciliates and nematodes that underlies the transition from germline to somatic telomeres.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Imp1 acts as a dosage- and stage-dependent temporal rheostat orchestrating radial glial fate transitions and cortical morphogenesis

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Romie Angelo G. Azur
   2. Daniel Feliciano
   3. Isabel Espinosa-Medina
   4. Raghabendra Adhikari
   5. Joaquin Lilao-Garzón
   6. Ella Jensen
   7. Ching-Po Yang
   8. Tzumin Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents new insights into the post-transcriptional mechanisms that govern cortical development. Through state-of-the-art methodology to track neuronal birth order, the data provide compelling evidence that Imp1 (Igf2bp1/Zbp1) orchestrates radial glia fate transitions and cortical neurogenesis. The findings establish a new framework for understanding how post-transcriptional mechanisms integrate with transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory layers to control cortical temporal patterning.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Skull Bone Marrow Drainage and Its Associations with Inflammation, Sleep Quality, and Cognitive Performance

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Ying Zhou
    2. Haidi Jin
    3. Xiao Zhu
    4. Yifei Li
    5. Ziyu Zhou
    6. Xin Huang
    7. Huihong Ke
    8. Mengmeng Fang
    9. Jianzhong Sun
    10. Min Lou

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This is a well-executed intrathecal MRI tracer study that provides valuable early in vivo evidence for CSF drainage into human skull bone marrow and explores clinically relevant associations using robust imaging methodology and regional analyses. However, the evidence supporting the interpretation of early (4 h) tracer signal as impaired clearance is incomplete, and appears difficult to reconcile with established CSF tracer kinetics. They also note that the reported links to sleep and cognitive performance are weakened by reliance on subjective, retrospective questionnaires rather than objective physiological measurements.

    Reviewed by eLife