eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Complex opioid-driven modulation of glutamatergic and cholinergic neurotransmission in a GABAergic brain nucleus associated with emotion, reward, and addiction

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ramesh Chittajallu
   2. Anna Vlachos
   3. Adam P Caccavano
   4. Xiaoqing Yuan
   5. Steven Hunt
   6. Daniel Abebe
   7. Edra London
   8. Kenneth A Pelkey
   9. Chris J McBain

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents important information about the role of mu opioid receptors in neurotransmission between the medial habenula and the interpeduncular nucleus. The authors provide convincing evidence that mu opioid receptor activation has differential effects on transmission from substance P neurons and cholinergic neurons, and that blockade of potassium channels can unmask a nicotinic cholinergic synaptic response. This work will be of high interest to those studying this brain region, and potentially to the larger neuroscience community studying motivated behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Phase-specific premotor inhibition modulates leech rhythmic motor output

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Martina Radice
   2. Agustin Sanchez Merlinsky
   3. Federico Yulita
   4. Lidia Szczupak

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The medicinal leech preparation is an amenable system in which to understand the neural basis of locomotion. Here a previously identified non-spiking neuron was studied in leech and found to alter the mean firing frequency of a crawl-related motoneuron, which fires during the contraction phase of crawling. The findings are valuable and the experiments were diligently done and considered solid. The results lay a foundation for additional studies in this system.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. β-glucan reprograms macrophages to attenuate efferocytosis of cancer cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Alexandros Chatzis
   2. Jakub Lukaszonek
   3. Dimitris Lagos
   4. Dave Boucher
   5. Ioannis Kourtzelis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study describes the effect of beta-glucan innate training of macrophages and its effect on uptake of tumour cells and on the production of inflammatory cytokines. The data are convincing and show decreased phagocytic activity of apoptotic tumour cells accompanied by lower levels of secreted IL-1β, and in vivo findings are also provided in the revision. This finding has potential impact on designing potential macrophage-targeted cancer immuno-therapeutic approaches.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Mapping Visual Contrast Sensitivity and Vision Loss Across the Visual Field with Model-Based fMRI

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Hugo T Chow-Wing-Bom
   2. Matteo Lisi
   3. Noah C Benson
   4. Freya Lygo-Frett
   5. Patrick Yu-Wai-Man
   6. Frederic Dick
   7. Roni O Maimon-Mor
   8. Tessa M Dekker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Using fMRI-based pRF mapping, this important study presents a novel method to estimate visual field (VF) and VF loss/or potential restoration, through analysis of contrast sensitivity patterns in the early visual cortex. While the approach is very interesting and the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, some methodological concerns need to be addressed. The work will be of interest to researchers in vision/clinical vision, neuroscience, and brain imaging.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Uncovering the electrical synapse proteome in retinal neurons via in vivo proximity labeling

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Stephan Tetenborg
   2. Eyad Shihabeddin
   3. Elizebeth Olive Akansha Manoj Kumar
   4. Crystal L Sigulinsky
   5. Karin Dedek
   6. Ya-Ping Lin
   7. Fabio A Echeverry
   8. Hannah Hoff
   9. Alberto E Pereda
   10. Bryan W Jones
   11. Christophe P Ribelayga
   12. Klaus Ebnet
   13. Ken Matsuura
   14. John O’Brien

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study aims to identify the proteins that make up the electrical synapse, which are much less understood than those of the chemical synapse. These findings represent an important step toward understanding the molecular function of chemical synapses and will have broad utility for the wider neuroscience field. The experimental evidence is convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Olfactory combinatorial coding supports risk-reward decision making in C. elegans

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Md Zubayer Hossain Saad
   2. William G Ryan
   3. Chelyan A Edwards
   4. Benjamin N Szymanski
   5. Lana Awa
   6. Jenna Kaake
   7. Alexander Martin
   8. Aryan R Marri
   9. Lilian G Jerow
   10. Robert McCullumsmith
   11. Bruce A Bamber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study shows that an odorant that is typically thought of as a repellant actually activates both attractant and repellant olfactory neurons in C. elegans. Convincing evidence is provided that nematode worms can integrate signals in different sensory pathways to drive different behavioral responses to the same cue. These findings will be of interest to scientists interested in combinatorial coding in sensory systems.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Observation of persister cell histories reveals diverse modes of survival in antibiotic persistence

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Miki Umetani
   2. Miho Fujisawa
   3. Reiko Okura
   4. Takashi Nozoe
   5. Shoichi Suenaga
   6. Hidenori Nakaoka
   7. Edo Kussell
   8. Yuichi Wakamoto

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The work is interesting in its characterization of a large number of antibiotic persisters from a wild-type strain. Previous work was typically limited to directly observe either high persister strains or a smaller number of wt persisters. Therefore, it sheds new light on the elusive non-dormant persisters present in exponentially growing cultures and should help resolve previous conflicting observations.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Nora virus proliferates in dividing intestinal stem cells and thereby sensitizes Drosophila flies to Pseudomonas aeruginosa intestinal infection and to oxidative stress

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Adrien Franchet
   2. Samantha Haller
   3. Miriam Yamba
   4. Vincent Barbier
   5. Angelica Thomaz-Vieira
   6. Vincent Leclerc
   7. Stefanie Becker
   8. Kwang-Zin Lee
   9. Igor Orlov
   10. Danièle Spehner
   11. Laurent Daeffler
   12. Dominique Ferrandon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study shows that the Nora virus, a natural Drosophila pathogen that also persistently infects many laboratory fly stocks, infects intestinal stem cells (ISCs), leading to a shorter life span and increased sensitivity to intestinal infection with the bacterium Pseudomonas. The authors provide convincing data to support their conclusions. The paper provides new insights into virus-host interactions in the Drosophila gut and serves as a warning for scientists who use the fruit fly as a model to study gut physiology.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Sense of control buffers against stress

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jennifer C Fielder
   2. Jinyu Shi
   3. Daniel McGlade
   4. Quentin JM Huys
   5. Nikolaus Steinbeis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important research addresses the effects of subjective control and task difficulty on experienced stress using a novel behavioral task administered on the same day in two large online samples. Convincing evidence is provided, establishing the internal and external task validity of the task, as well as a relationship between the sense of control and task difficulty, with individual differences in relevant mental health constructs. Evidence for the specificity of the link between control and stress would be more substantial if the design had not conflated control and reward rate. This work will be of interest to psychologists and clinicians studying the concepts of controllability, stress, and psychopathology.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The mechanism of DRB7.2:DRB4 mediated sequestering of endogenous inverted-repeat dsRNA precursors in plants

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Sneha Paturi
    2. Debadutta Patra
    3. Priti Chanda Behera
    4. Ramdas Aute
    5. Nilam Waghela
    6. Priyadarshan Kinatukara
    7. Mandar V Deshmukh

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The manuscript provides valuable findings in the field for understanding the RNAi regulation in plants at the molecular level with a model of how DRB7.2 and DRB4 form a heterodimer and protect dsRNA from DICER activity. The presented data provide a solid basis for the model, but certain measurements could benefit from replicates for robust statistics.

    Reviewed by eLife