eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Digest before Ingest: Early Recruitment of Membrane-bound DNaseX to Phagocytic Cups in Macrophages

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Arghajit Pyne
   2. Vivek Pandey
   3. Subhankar Kundu
   4. Sachie Ikegami
   5. Xuefeng Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work by Pyne and Pandey et al. addresses DNase X (DNase1L1) activity at the macrophage phagocytic cup, using an innovative imaging approach that couples visualization of cup formation to spatially resolve DNA degradation. The methodology is technically sound, and the central finding that DNA digestion begins prior to phagolysosomal maturation is considered well supported, though some mechanistic claims may benefit from further evidence and more cautious framing. Overall, the study is solid and provides a valuable framework for investigating early events at the phagocytic cup that may shape responses to pathogens and inflammatory disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Capturing learning on the fly: an eye-tracking method to quantify prediction errors and updating the prior

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Flóra Hann
   2. Cintia Anna Nagy
   3. Zita Olivia Nagy
   4. Dezso Nemeth
   5. Orsolya Pesthy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable framework that uses anticipatory eye movements to track how expectations are formed and revised during implicit probabilistic sequence learning. The evidence supporting a behavioural dissociation between errors arising from environmental noise and errors reflecting an inaccurate internal model is solid, but the oculomotor data describe behaviour rather than explain the underlying computational mechanisms, and the stronger mechanistic claims - that learning is more repetition-based than error-driven - remain incomplete without formal comparison against computational models of error-driven learning. The emerging reaction-time difference between conditions appears driven by slowing to low-probability stimuli rather than facilitation of high-probability ones, an asymmetry that requires decomposition and consideration of alternative explanations. The potential contamination of the anticipatory measure by starting gaze position should be addressed through control analyses, and the "process-pure" framing should be tempered, given that oculomotor behaviour is itself subject to motor learning.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Role of desolvation on biomolecular liquid-liquid phase separation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Kai Zhang
   2. Zhiyu Peng
   3. Wenfei Li
   4. Wei Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript presents a valuable and timely contribution by incorporating desolvation barriers into coarse-grained models of biomolecular condensates. The findings are convincing, supported by a clear physical model and systematic simulations showing effects on phase behavior, packing, and dynamics. Some clarification and broader context would improve the manuscript, but it provides a foundation that will be of use for developing more realistic coarse-grained interaction schemes.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Dopaminergic Neurons Linking Threat Processing to Cardiac Modulation and Locomotor Responses

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Masato Tsuji
   2. Daisuke Jinkoma
   3. Yuki Uemura
   4. Ayako Ogasawara
   5. Kazuo Emoto

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study identifies two pairs of dopaminergic neurons (DA-WED) in Drosophila that coordinate cardiac deceleration and locomotor responses to a mechanical threat. The evidence is convincing, supported by comprehensive optogenetic, physiological, and behavioral experiments showing that these neurons are required for and sufficient to drive threat-associated cardiac slowing. The proposed role of cardiac deceleration as an interoceptive contributor to locomotion is intriguing, but should be presented more cautiously, as the causal relationship between heartbeat changes and locomotor output remains less directly established. The work will be of broad interest to those interested in neural circuits, neuromodulation, and the integration of physiological and behavioral responses.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Exercise-Induced Hypoalgesia Following High- vs. Low-Intensity Aerobic Exercise in Fit Females

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Janne I. Nold
   2. Tahmine Fadai
   3. Zora P. Gerbers
   4. Christian Büchel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study proposes that fitness level influences exercise-induced hypoalgesia in women. However, the evidence to support this claim is incomplete: the conclusions rely on a small interaction that emerges only under specific conditions and are incongruent with the title, the findings are inconsistent across pain modalities and stimulus intensities, the analysis approach does not fully exploit the continuous pain ratings collected, and the absence of a baseline condition limits the interpretability of results as reflecting true hypoalgesia. Additionally, the methods by which fitness level was categorized across cohorts can be questioned, and the results and figures do not clearly illustrate how between-group comparisons were conducted. With a proper revision, it could be useful for sports medicine practitioners to consider how they administer exercise protocols to help those experiencing pain.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Two Glu/Asp Residues Cooperatively Mediate an Early Step of ATP Hydrolysis in GHKL ATPases MutL and GyrB

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Kenji Fukui
   2. Ayaka Shibuya
   3. Takeshi Murakawa
   4. Takato Yano

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this solid work, Fukui et al. re-examined the ATP hydrolysis mechanism in GHKL ATPases, revealing a cooperative role for two conserved acidic residues rather than a single one. This useful study used a range of biochemical and structural techniques on various mutants from different members of the GHKL ATPase family to test and validate their proposed mechanism. An updated and extended mechanistic model of ATP hydrolysis by this class of enzymes is proposed.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Real-Time Embodied Experience Shapes High-Level Reasoning Under Altered Gravity

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Hélène Grandchamp des Raux
   2. Tommaso Ghilardi
   3. Elisa Raffaella Ferrè
   4. Ori Ossmy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study investigates whether high-level physical reasoning is grounded in real-time bodily and vestibular signals using an innovative combination of virtual tool-use tasks and galvanic vestibular stimulation. The evidence is incomplete, as the main claims rely on limited and partially exploratory effects, including uncorrected multiple comparisons and cross-study comparisons that weaken the strength of the conclusions. The work, if it can be supported by clearer statistical support and more cautious interpretation, will be of interest to researchers in embodied cognition and physical reasoning.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Naturalistic Audiovisual Stimulation Reveals the Tonotopic Organization of Human Auditory Cortex

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Nicholas Hedger
   2. Tomas Knapen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses large-scale 7T naturalistic fMRI data and nonlinear pRF modeling to map the tonotopic organization of the human auditory cortex, linking spectral tuning to speech selectivity and cortical hierarchy. The evidence is solid, demonstrating that movie-based stimuli can recover robust population-level auditory maps and offering tools for leveraging existing datasets, although there is room for improvement in relating static tonotopy to dynamic speech processing and in presentation clarity. The study will be of interest to a broad audience working on auditory cortex organization and mapping.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. SPEx: Compartment-Resolved Proteomics via Expansion Microscopy–Guided Microdissection

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Curdin A. Franziscus
   2. Alexia Ferrand
   3. Oliver Biehlmaier
   4. Alexander Schmidt
   5. Anne Spang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study describing 'SPEx', a broadly accessible method that combines cell expansion, laser microdissection, and mass spectrometry to enable subcellular proteomic profiling. The authors provide convincing evidence that this flexible integration of established techniques provides a robust and practical approach for compartment-resolved spatial proteomics. The authors support their main claims with appropriate validation across multiple subcellular compartments and show that the method can recover known markers while also identifying previously uncharacterized components. Overall, the work is likely to be of broad interest to cell and molecular biologists, particularly those seeking scalable and cost-effective strategies for mapping organelle composition.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Loose coupling between Ca2+ channels and release sensors as a synaptic correlate of higher order brain function

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Max Schwarze
    2. Grit Bornschein
    3. Antonia Brunner
    4. Akanksha Arshia
    5. Simone Brachtendorf
    6. Hartmut Schmidt

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      By using a combination of patch clamp recordings, calcium imaging and computer modeling, the authors analyze the spatial distribution of voltage gated calcium channels at glutamatergic synapses formed between layer 5 pyramidal neurons (L5PNs) and between layer 2/3 and L5PNs in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and primary somatosensory cortex (S1); they conclude that the calcium channel-vesicle coupling is looser in the PFC compared to S1, although additional experiments are needed to determine how the distinct functional characteristics of these synapses in different brain regions might affect data interpretation. Overall, these findings are important because they have implications for shaping synaptic plasticity and neural circuit function across brain regions. They are solid because they are based on the use of a multi-pronged approach, although the presentation would benefit from stronger integration of the current findings with the existing literature and a more explicit discussion of potential limitations and confounding factors for data interpretation.

    Reviewed by eLife