eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Modularity of the segmentation clock and morphogenesis

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. James E Hammond
   2. Ruth E Baker
   3. Berta Verd

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable manuscript uses mathematical modeling to address the synchrony of the vertebrate segmentation clock with the developmental processes. The authors use convincing arguments to support the idea that this would allow the evolution of flexible body plans and a variable number of segments. This manuscript could be of interest to developmental biologists and systems biologists.

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

   Reviewed by eLife, Review Commons

2. Extracellular adenosine deamination primes tip organizer development in Dictyostelium

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Pavani Hathi
   2. Baskar Ramamurthy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     During the development of the unicellular eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum, cells aggregate into mounds, forming protrusions or tips, which then become the front of migrating slugs and the top of fruiting bodies. This valuable study identifies adenosine deaminase-related growth factor (ADGF) as a key regulator of tip formation and convincingly shows that ADGF catalyses the conversion of adenosine to ammonia, allowing ammonia to initiate tip formation, and then elucidates pathways upstream and downstream of ADGF. The authors discuss the intriguing possibility that mammalian ADGF may also similarly regulate development.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

3. Comparative fMRI reveals differences in the functional organization of the visual cortex for animacy perception in dogs and humans

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Eszter Borbála Farkas
   2. Raúl Hernández-Pérez
   3. Laura Veronica Cuaya
   4. Eduardo Rojas-Hortelano
   5. Márta Gácsi
   6. Attila Andics

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study presents a comparative investigation of category selectivity in dogs and humans. The study compares brain representations of animate and inanimate objects, replicating and extending previous reports in this nascent field of dog FMRI. The methods and results seem to lack sufficient detail, appropriate controls, or statistical evidence, so at this stage of the review process, the strength of evidence is deemed incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. On CA1 ripple oscillations in rats and the reassessment of asynchronicity evidence

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Robson Scheffer-Teixeira
   2. Adriano BL Tort

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides new insights into the synchronization of ripple oscillations in the hippocampus, both within and across hemispheres. Using carefully designed statistical methods, it presents compelling evidence that synchrony is significantly higher within a hemisphere than across. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists studying the hippocampus and memory.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Coral anthozoan-specific opsins employ a novel chloride counterion for spectral tuning

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Yusuke Sakai
   2. Saumik Sen
   3. Tomohiro Sugihara
   4. Yukiya Kakeyama
   5. Makoto Iwasaki
   6. Gebhard FX Schertler
   7. Xavier Deupi
   8. Mitsumasa Koyanagi
   9. Akihisa Terakita

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors provide compelling evidence that a chloride ion stabilizes the protonated Schiff base chromophore linkage in the animal rhodopsin Antho2a. This important finding is novel and of major interest to a broad audience, including optogenetics researchers, protein engineers, spectroscopists, and environmental biologists. The study combines state-of-the-art research methods, such as spectroscopic and mutational analyses, which are complemented by QM/MM calculations, and was further improved based on the comments from the reviewers.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Human multiethnic radiogenomics reveals low-abundancy microRNA signature in plasma-derived extracellular vesicles for early diagnosis and molecular subtyping of pancreatic cancer

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Jianying Xu
   2. Wenjie Shi
   3. Yi Zhu
   4. Chao Zhang
   5. Julia Nagelschmitz
   6. Maximilian Doelling
   7. Sara Al-Madhi
   8. Ujjwal Mukund Mahajan
   9. Maciej Pech
   10. Georg Rose
   11. Roland Siegfried Croner
   12. Guoliang Zheng
   13. Christoph Kahlert
   14. Ulf Dietrich Kahlert

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors attempt to identify which patients with benign lesions will progress to cancer using a liquid biomarker. Although the study is valuable, the evidence provided for the liquid biopsy EV miRNA signature developed based on radiomics features remains incomplete. There remain key details missing and validation experiments that would better support the conclusions of the study.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Elucidating the Mechanism Underlying UBA7•UBE2L6 Disulfide Complex Formation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pei-Tzu Chen
   2. Jia-Yin Yeh
   3. Jui-Hsia Weng
   4. Kuen-Phon Wu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this important study, the authors employed state-of-the-art biochemistry, cryo-EM, and HDX mass spec approaches to study the formation of the binary Uba7-UBE2L6 and ternary UBA7-UBE2L6-ISG15 complexes. The results established mechanisms by which UBA7 and UBE2L6 form disulfide bonds, disrupting the ISG15 transfer cascade. While the biochemical and structural experiments are largely convincing, the mechanism under in vivo conditions remains unclear, due to the limited use of a single E2 enzyme. The authors need to repeat their experiments with a representative panel of human E2 enzymes.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Parallel HIV-1 fitness landscapes shape viral dynamics in humans and macaques that develop broadly neutralizing antibodies

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Kai S Shimagaki
   2. Rebecca M Lynch
   3. John P Barton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this important quantitative study of HIV-1 evolution in humans and rhesus macaques, selection coefficients are inferred at scale over the HIV genome. Selection coefficients are similar in humans and macaques, providing compelling evidence that these coefficients are representative of the fitness landscapes of these viruses within hosts. This work will be of interest to the community working on quantitative evolution and fitness landscape inference, and the finding that rapid fitness gains in the HIV population predict bNAb emergence has significant implications for HIV vaccine design.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Effects of parental care on skin microbial community composition in poison frogs

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Marie-Therese Fischer
   2. Katherine S Xue
   3. Elizabeth K Costello
   4. Mai Dvorak
   5. Gaelle Raboisson
   6. Anna Robaczewska
   7. Stephanie N Caty
   8. David A Relman
   9. Lauren A O'Connell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides an important perspective on the influence of parental care in the establishment of the amphibian microbiome. Through a combination of cross-fostering experimental work, comparative analysis, and developmental time series, the authors provide compelling evidence that vertical transmission through care is possible, and solid but somewhat preliminary evidence that it plays a significant role in shaping frog skin microbiomes in nature or across time. This work will be of interest to researchers studying the evolution of parental care and microbiomes in vertebrates.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. In vivo exchange of glucose and lactate between photoreceptors and the retinal pigment epithelium

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Daniel T Hass
    2. Elizabeth Giering
    3. John YS Han
    4. Celia M Bisbach
    5. Kriti Pandey
    6. Brian M Robbings
    7. Thomas O Mundinger
    8. Nicholas D Nolan
    9. Stephen H Tsang
    10. Neal S Peachey
    11. Nancy J Philp
    12. James B Hurley

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This research is valuable as it investigates metabolic shuttling between photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) using in vivo infusion techniques and mouse models. The authors find that the retina significantly relies on circulating glucose, with photoreceptors being the primary consumers of glucose, which is convincing. However, the study has incomplete evidence to support the claims that photoreceptors can use lactate as a fuel source, that lactate exported from photoreceptors is utilized by the RPE, and that lactate contributes to the TCA cycle in the RPE. These claims need substantial revision to include potential alternative explanations or perform key experiments.

    Reviewed by eLife