eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Synchronous processing of temporal information across the hippocampus, striatum, and orbitofrontal cortex

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Akihiro Shimbo
   2. Yukiko Sekine
   3. Saori Kashiwagi
   4. Shigeyoshi Fujisawa

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study examined the important question of how neurons code temporal information across the hippocampus, dorsal striatum, and orbitofrontal cortex. Using a behavioral task in the rat that requires discrimination between short and long time intervals, the authors conclude that time intervals are represented in all three regions and that synchronized activity of time-coding cells across the brain regions is coordinated by theta rhythms. However, several weaknesses are noted, and in its current form, the study provides incomplete evidence for understanding how temporal information is processed and coordinated throughout these brain networks.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Blood pressure variability compromises vascular function in middle-aged mice

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Perenkita J Mendiola
   2. Philip O'Herron
   3. Kun Xie
   4. Michael W Brands
   5. Weston Bush
   6. Rachel E Patterson
   7. Valeria Di Stefano
   8. Jessica A Filosa

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study that demonstrates that blood pressure variability impairs myogenic tone and diminishes baroreceptor reflex. The study also provides evidence that blood pressure variability blunts functional hyperemia and contributes to cognitive decline. The evidence is compelling whereby the authors use appropriate and validated methodology in line with or more rigorous than the current state-of-the-art.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Event boundaries drive norepinephrine release and distinctive neural representations of space in the rodent hippocampus

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Sam McKenzie
   2. Alexandra L Sommer
   3. Tia N Donaldson
   4. Infania Pimentel
   5. Meenakshi Kakani
   6. Irene Jungyeon Choi
   7. Ehren L Newman
   8. Daniel F English

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides new evidence on the role of norepinephrine (NE) release in the hippocampus in response to environmental transitions (event boundaries), providing a potential link between NE signaling and the segmentation of episodic memories. The work is solid, employing innovative techniques such as fiber photometry with the GRAB-NE sensor for NE measurement, the analysis of public electrophysiology hippocampal datasets, and well-controlled experiments. While further analysis could strengthen some claims, this work offers insights into memory, neuromodulation, and hippocampal function.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Non-allometric expansion and enhanced compartmentalization of Purkinje cell dendrites in the human cerebellum

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Silas E Busch
   2. Christian Hansel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a convincing study of the morphological properties of Purkinje cell dendrites and dendritic spines in adult humans and mice, and the anatomical determinants of multi-innervation by climbing fibers. The data will provide an important resource for the field of cerebellar computation.

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5. Intraflagellar transport protein IFT172 contains a C-terminal ubiquitin-binding U-box-like domain involved in ciliary signaling

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Nevin K Zacharia
   2. Stefanie Kuhns
   3. Niels Boegholm
   4. Anni Christensen
   5. Jiaolong Wang
   6. Narcis A Petriman
   7. Anna Lorentzen
   8. Jindriska L Fialova
   9. Lucie Menguy
   10. Sophie Saunier
   11. Soren T Christensen
   12. Jens S Andersen
   13. Sagar Bhogaraju
   14. Esben Lorentzen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of intraflagellar transport, ciliogenesis, and ciliary-based signaling, by identifying the interactions of IFT172 with IFT-A components, ubiquitin-binding, and ubiquitination, mediated by IFT172 C-terminus and its role in ciliogenesis and ciliary signaling. The results of the structural analysis of the IFT172 C-terminus and the evidence for the interaction between IFT172 and IFT-A components are convincing. However, the analysis of ubiquitin-binding and ubiquitination mediated by IFT172 is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Magnetotactic bacteria optimally navigate natural pore networks

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Alexander P Petroff
   2. Julia Hernandez
   3. Vladislav Kelin
   4. Nina Radchenko-Hannafin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Combining experiments in microfluidic devices and computer simulation, this study provides a valuable analysis of the relevant parameters that determine the motility of (multicellular) magnetotactic bacteria in sediment-like environments. The study presents convincing evidence that there is an optimum in the biological parameters for motile life under such conditions.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Large inversions in Lake Malawi cichlids are associated with habitat preference, lineage, and sex determination

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Nikesh M Kumar
   2. Taylor L Cooper
   3. Thomas D Kocher
   4. J Todd Streelman
   5. Patrick T McGrath

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Using several hundreds of samples and cutting-edge genomic methods, including BioNano, PacBio, HiFi, and advanced bioinformatic pipelines, the authors identify six large chromosomal inversions segregating in over 100 species of Lake Malawi cichlids. This important study provides compelling evidence for the presence of these six inversions, their differential distribution among populations, and the association of chromosome 10 inversion with a sex-determination locus. This work also provides a starting point for further investigating the role of these inversions with respect to local adaptation, speciation, sex determination, hybridization, and ILS in cichlids, which represent ~5% of the extant vertebrate species and are one of the most prominent examples of adaptive radiations.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Methylation Clocks Do Not Predict Age or Alzheimer’s Disease Risk Across Genetically Admixed Individuals

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Sebastián Cruz-González
   2. Esther Gu
   3. Lissette Gomez
   4. Makaela Mews
   5. Jeffery M Vance
   6. Michael L Cuccaro
   7. Mario R Cornejo-Olivas
   8. Briseida E Feliciano-Astacio
   9. Goldie S Byrd
   10. Jonathan L Haines
   11. Margaret A Pericak-Vance
   12. Anthony J Griswold
   13. William S Bush
   14. John A Capra

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study assesses epigenetic clocks across ancestries, including in the context of accelerated aging in Alzheimer's Disease patients. It provides convincing evidence for population differences in age estimation accuracy across a variety of epigenetic clocks, but the degree to which these differences reflect continuous variation in ancestry, and/or are confounded by environmental or power differences is not entirely clear; consequently, the evidence that reduced portability is rooted in genetics is incomplete. Given the accelerating use of epigenetic clocks across fields, this study is nevertheless likely to be of interest to researchers working on human genetic and epigenetic variation or who apply epigenetic clocks to diverse human populations.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Nonequilibrium polysome dynamics promote chromosome segregation and its coupling to cell growth in Escherichia coli

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Alexandros Papagiannakis
   2. Qiwei Yu
   3. Sander K Govers
   4. Wei-Hsiang Lin
   5. Ned S Wingreen
   6. Christine Jacobs-Wagner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents compelling observational data supporting a role for transcription and polysome accumulation in the separation of newly replicated bacterial chromosomes. Through a comprehensive and rigorous comparative analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of ribosomal accumulation, nucleoid segregation, and cell division, the authors develop a model that nucleoid segregation rates are determined at least in part by the accumulation of ribosomes in the center of the cell, exerting a steric force to drive nucleoid segregation prior to cell division. This model circumvents the need to invoke as yet unidentified active mechanisms (e.g. an equivalent to a eukaryotic spindle) as drivers of bacterial chromosome segregation and intrinsically couples this vital step in the cell cycle to cell growth.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Early Diagnosis and Prognostic Prediction of Colorectal Cancer through Plasma Methylation Regions

    This article has 22 authors:

    1. Lingqin Zhu
    2. Lang Yang
    3. Fangli Men
    4. Jianwei Yu
    5. Shuyang Sun
    6. Chenguang Li
    7. Xianzong Ma
    8. Junfeng Xu
    9. Yangjie Li
    10. Ju Tian
    11. Xin Wang
    12. Hui Xie
    13. Qian Kang
    14. Linghui Duan
    15. Xiang Yi
    16. Wei Guo
    17. Xueqing Gong
    18. Ni Guo
    19. Youyong Lu
    20. Joseph Leung
    21. Yuqi He
    22. Jianqiu Sheng

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study presents an important finding that has identified 27 differentially methylated regions as a signature for non-invasive early cancer detection and predicting prognosis for colorectal cancer. The findings demonstrate promising clinical potential, particularly for improving cancer screening and patient monitoring. In general, the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. A larger sample size will be key to further improving this work in the future. The work will be of interest to researchers interested in cancer diagnosis or colorectal cancer monitoring.

    Reviewed by eLife