eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Junctional β-Catenin Stabilization Links Wnt Signaling and Force Generation

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Agimaa Otgonbaatar
   2. Sujithra Shankar
   3. Prameet Kaur
   4. Prabhat Tawari
   5. Nicholas S. Tolwinski

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study by Otgonbaatar and colleagues employs advanced live microscopy, optogenetics, and an endogenous fluorescent timer system to investigate short- and long-term stabilization dynamics of β-catenin/Armadillo (Arm) during Drosophila development. The authors identify an unexpected and functionally relevant enrichment of stabilized junctional Arm in leading-edge cells during dorsal closure, providing evidence for a stabilization mechanism that appears independent of canonical Wingless signaling. These findings are significant because they expand current understanding of β-catenin/Arm beyond its canonical signaling functions and suggest an important role in tissue mechanics and force transmission during dorsal closure. The proposed model represents a key advance in the field, but the strength of evidence is currently incomplete: the main conclusions regarding Wingless independence, JNK-mediated regulation, and the mechanical role of stabilized Arm are only partially supported by the available data and would benefit from further experimental testing and corroboration.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Excitation–inhibition balance controls coupling stability and network reorganization in a plastic Kuramoto model

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Satoshi Kuroki
   2. Kenji Mizuseki

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study investigates how plasticity and homeostatic adaptation can lead to the emergence of synchronization patterns associated with different sleep phases. The ideas are novel and interesting, but the evidence at present remains incomplete. Further work is needed to determine whether the reported states persist for larger system sizes, longer integration times, and how robust the results are to different initial conditions.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Multiple Molecular Pathways to Longevity: Opposing Gene Expression Programs Define Distinct Aging Strategies

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Zenith D Rudich
   2. Jiaxi Guan
   3. Aura A Tamez Gonzalez
   4. Grant F Booth
   5. Sonja K Soo
   6. Ulrich Anglas
   7. Meeta Mistry
   8. Megan M Senchuk
   9. Jeremy M Van Raamsdonk

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study presents a comparative analysis of the transcriptomic features underlying C. elegans longevity, providing insights into how different changes in gene expression can promote longevity. The authors present solid evidence with analysis and selected functional validation showing that some long-lived animals share common changes while others appear to use opposing strategies. The datasets and analyses contained within and the user-friendly website developed will be of interest to researchers interested in complicated transcriptomic analyses and/or the biology of aging.

     [Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

   Reviewed by eLife, Review Commons

4. Asymmetric introgression and thermal advantage jointly drive climate-mediated lineage turnover in a mixed-ploidy reed

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Lele Liu
   2. Wenyi Sheng
   3. Yuhui Wang
   4. Lele Lin
   5. Cui Wang
   6. Huijia Song
   7. Yaolin Guo
   8. Weihua Guo

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The report by Liu and colleagues provides a valuable analysis of environmental adaptation across diverse lineages of the grass Phragmites australis differing by their level of ploidy. The analysis reports solid evidence that lineages with distinct levels of ploidy occupy different climate niches. The use in tandem of regional survey and common garden experiment represents a convincing approach to suggest a correlation between ploidy and climate adaptation. This manuscript will be of interest to a broad community of ecological genomicists interested in how structural variation in gene dosage potentially affects the pattern of adaptation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Identification of key Y4R residues enables the discovery of selective non-peptide small-molecule agonists

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Tim Pelczyk
   2. Corinna Schüß
   3. Mateusz Skłodowski
   4. Fabian Liessmann
   5. David Jordan
   6. Vivian Ehrlich
   7. Paul Eisenhuth
   8. Jan Stichel
   9. Albert O Gattor
   10. Max Keller
   11. Jens Meiler
   12. Annette G Beck-Sickinger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines peptide engineering, molecular docking, and functional assays to define the molecular basis of ligand recognition and activation of the human Y4 receptor and to identify three novel small-molecule agonists. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, with complementary experimental and computational approaches providing strong support for the proposed receptor-ligand interactions. While concentration-response analyses of the small-molecule agonists and additional structural or mutagenesis studies would further strengthen the work, these are not essential to support the main conclusions. The work will be of interest to researchers studying GPCR pharmacology, structural biology, and ligand discovery.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Zapit: Open Source Laser-Scanning Photostimulation For Neuroscience

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Michael Lohse
   2. Oliver M Gauld
   3. Maja T Quigley
   4. Ainiah Masood
   5. Chaofei Bao
   6. Jingjie Li
   7. Nathaniel J Miska
   8. Gerion Nabbefeld
   9. Quentin Pajot-Moric
   10. Simon Townsend
   11. Peter Vincent
   12. Angela Y Yang
   13. Nikolaos Zervogiannis
   14. Athena Akrami
   15. Chunyu A Duan
   16. Jeffrey C Erlich
   17. Sonja B Hofer
   18. Thomas D Mrsic-Flogel
   19. Philip Coen
   20. Robert AA Campbell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work presents a software and hardware suite for targeted photostimulation that can be used in vivo. The package is a well-designed and documented hardware/software suite with a comprehensive build guide. This tool will likely promote important neuroscience advances through targeted real-time perturbation of the cerebral cortex. Overall, this manuscript makes a compelling case on how to design and make available power tools for the research community.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Distinct prokaryotic gut microbiome and proviral-immune axes of pathophysiology in Sickle Cell Disease

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Zachary N Flamholz
   2. Jennifer De Los Santos
   3. Karen Ireland
   4. Janine Keenan
   5. Jacob S Kazmi
   6. Aakash Mahant Mahant
   7. Anayeli Correa
   8. Paul S Frenette
   9. Betsy C Herold
   10. Deepa Manwani
   11. Libusha Kelly

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiome in sickle cell disease (SCD) patients, revealing associations between bacteriophage, host immunity, and SCD pathophysiology. While these data are interesting and helpful for hypothesis generation, they are deemed incomplete; additional experiments would be needed to test causality and to provide mechanistic insight. Despite these limitations, this work will be of broad interest to researchers studying SCD, immunology, phage biology, and the microbiome, adding to the small but growing literature suggesting a microbial component to SCD.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The openretina Project: Collaborative Retina Modelling Across Datasets and Species

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Federico D’Agostino
   2. Thomas Zenkel
   3. Baptiste Lorenzi
   4. Michaela Vystrčilová
   5. Dominic Gonschorek
   6. Samuel Suhai
   7. Samuele Virgili
   8. Alexander S Ecker
   9. Olivier Marre
   10. Larissa Höfling
   11. Thomas Euler
   12. Matthias Bethge

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript presents openretina, an open-source platform that integrates retinal datasets, model training, benchmarking, and in silico analysis tools within a unified framework. The resource is valuable because it addresses long-standing challenges in reproducibility, accessibility, and cross-study comparison in computational retina research, while providing a foundation for community-driven model development and evaluation. The supporting evidence is solid, with the authors demonstrating a functional and well-documented platform across multiple datasets and species, although a clearer discussion of model interpretability, current performance limitations, and data quality standards would strengthen the resource.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Essential role for plasma membrane glutamate transporters in stimulus intensity coding in auditory neurons

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Tenzin Ngodup
   2. Laurence O. Trussell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this manuscript, the authors describe a cell-specific mechanism by which glutamate transporters regulate the fidelity with which T-stellate cells in the mouse ventral cochlear nucleus relay information from auditory nerve inputs. The study is supported by solid electrophysiological data. It provides valuable insights into how the rapid binding of glutamate to transporters shapes auditory information processing at specific synapses.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Comparative single-cell transcriptomic roadmap of mammalian fetal ovarian development

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Yifei Fang
    2. Shiyao Han
    3. Junmei Zhang
    4. Shengcan Xie
    5. Yue Su
    6. IISAGE Consortium
    7. Yulei Wei
    8. Young Tang
    9. Jingyue Ellie Duan

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study provides a cross-species single-cell transcriptomic resource for early female gonadal development in mammals. The data supporting the main conclusion remain incomplete, and experimental validation is needed to strengthen the conclusions. The work will be of interest to reproductive biologists and developmental biologists.

    Reviewed by eLife