eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. RHODOPSIN 7: An ancient non-retinal photoreceptor for contrast vision, darkness detection, and circadian regulation

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Valentina Kirsch
   2. Nils Reinhard
   3. Heiko Hartlieb
   4. Annika Mohr
   5. Dirk Rieger
   6. Peter Soba
   7. Charlotte Helfrich-Förster
   8. Pingkalai R Senthilan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study investigates, from multiple angles, the still-debated function of insect rhodopsin-7 (Rh7). The authors present compelling results for its ancient phylogenetic origin across pan-arthropods, a non-visual role based on expression analyses in the fly brain, an unusual G-protein signalling pathway, and - using behavioural genetics - that Rh7 affects how Drosophila melanogaster interprets and responds to light-dark transitions. Through this, the work provides fundamental new insights into the evolution and function of non-visual opsins.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. A lobule-specific neuronal representation of song temporal structure in the songbird cerebellum

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Roman Ursu
   2. Eduarda Centeno
   3. Arthur Leblois

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     There is a perennial question in the field of birdsong: the contribution of the cerebellum to singing and processing song-related information. This study provides a valuable first step into this discussion, using electrophysiology of cerebellar neurons during a battery of assays, including singing and song playback. While the electrophysiological dataset here is novel and could shed light on key aspects of the neural control of vocal behavior, the evidence provided for the conclusions reached by the authors is currently incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Leveraging Disease Association Degree for High-Accuracy MicroRNA Target Prediction

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Baiming Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study introduces miRTarDS, a novel computational framework that predicts microRNA-target interactions based on a publicly available pretrained Sentence-BERT language model and downstream classification analysis. The strength of the evidence is incomplete, as the evaluation framework relies on unreliable ground-truth and false sets. Furthermore, the analysis fails to compare miRTarDS against existing state-of-the-art biomedical language models.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Unraveling the Molecular Mechanisms of ABHD5 Membrane Targeting

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Amit Kumar
   2. Matthew Sanders
   3. Huamei Zhang
   4. Li Zhou
   5. Shahnaz Parveen
   6. Miriam C Jensen
   7. Thomas JD Jørgensen
   8. Christopher V Kelly
   9. James G Granneman
   10. Yu-ming M Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of how the lipase regulator ABHD5 may control lipase activity through interactions with lipid droplets and cellular membranes. By combining multiscale molecular dynamics simulations with experimental approaches, the authors provide novel molecular insights into this membrane-protein interaction and present evidence suggesting that the regulatory mechanism depends on protein conformational changes and local membrane remodeling. While much of the evidence supporting the main conclusions is convincing, several aspects of the analysis, interpretation, and discussion remain incomplete. Overall, this work will be of interest to structural and molecular biologists working on lipid metabolism and membrane biophysics.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Assessing evidence of immune imprinting in serological patterns of influenza immune response

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Bernardo García-Carreras
   2. Bingyi Yang
   3. James A Hay
   4. C Jessica E Metcalf
   5. Matt DT Hitchings
   6. Claire P Smith
   7. Siyu Chen
   8. Jonathan M Read
   9. Huachen Zhu
   10. Chaoqiang Jiang
   11. Kin On Kwok
   12. Steven Riley
   13. Sarah Cobey
   14. Justin Lessler
   15. Derek AT Cummings

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study highlights the challenge of identifying the role of immune imprinting in influenza immunity. The manuscript provides solid evidence that statistical support for imprinting depends heavily on model choice and can be found in the absence of imprinting due to age-related processes. However, the results are incomplete in that the impact of incorrectly modeling imprinting is not clear. The work will be of interest to researchers who study adaptive immunity in any system where imprinting may be observed.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Individual differences drive social hierarchies in mouse societies

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Jonathan R Reinwald
   2. Sarah Ghanayem
   3. David Wolf
   4. Max F Scheller
   5. Julia Lebedeva
   6. Philipp Lebhardt
   7. Oliver Gölz
   8. Corentin Nelias
   9. Wolfgang Kelsch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study introduces NoSeMaze, a semi-naturalistic platform for continuous, high-dimensional tracking of social and cognitive behaviors in group-housed mice, and uses it to show that individual social rank is stable across changing social contexts. By integrating automated dominance measures, proactive social behaviors, and reinforcement-learning-based profiles, the authors demonstrate a novel framework for examining how stable individual differences shape social structure. The strength of evidence is solid, advancing our understanding that social hierarchy can be viewed as a trait-like dimension of individuality. Yet, the interpretation of dominance in this paradigm and its broader ecological meaning remains somewhat ambiguous. This work will be of broad relevance for behavioral neuroscience and social behavior research.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. An IL-21R hypomorph circumvents functional redundancy to define STAT1 signaling in germinal center responses

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Christoph Jandl
   2. Joanna Warren
   3. Samantha Owens
   4. Marcel Batten
   5. Howard Wang
   6. Cecile King

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     IL21R, being a key cytokine receptor for shaping the T follicular helper and B cell functions, utilizes two STAT family members, STAT1 and STAT3. The authors utilize the IL21R ENU-induced mutant, together with relevant in vitro and in vivo experiments, to dissect the function of STAT1 and STAT3. The approach by itself sounds reasonable, but the main conclusions are incompletely supported by the data presented in this manuscript.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Alpha-Band Phase Modulates Perceptual Sensitivity by Changing Internal Noise and Sensory Tuning

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. April Pilipenko
   2. Alexandra Mcgowan
   3. Jason Samaha

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study explores how the phase of neural oscillations in the alpha band affects visual perception, indicating that perceptual performance varies due to changes in sensory precision rather than decision bias. The evidence is solid in its experimental design and analytical approach, although the limited sample size restricts the generalizability of the findings. This work should interest cognitive neuroscientists who study perception and decision-making.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Deep learning-driven characterization of single cell tuning in primate visual area V4 supports topological organization

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Konstantin F Willeke
   2. Kelli Restivo
   3. Katrin Franke
   4. Arne F Nix
   5. Santiago A Cadena
   6. Tori Shinn
   7. Cate Nealley
   8. Gabrielle Rodriguez
   9. Saumil Patel
   10. Alexander S Ecker
   11. Fabian H Sinz
   12. Andreas S Tolias

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses a key, long-standing question about how visual feature selectivity is organized in mid-level visual cortex, using an ambitious combination of large-scale neural recordings and image synthesis. It provides important insights into the complexity of single-neuron selectivity and suggests a structured organization across cortical depth. While the evidence is generally solid and technically impressive, several key claims would be strengthened by additional controls, particularly regarding the sources of similarity across neurons and the dependence of the results on modeling choices.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Magnesium isoglycyrrhizinate alleviates alcohol-associated liver disease through targeting HSD11B1

    This article has 11 authors:

    1. Lu Xiao
    2. Lu Li
    3. Shasha Wu
    4. Zhaoyi Che
    5. Yuyang Du
    6. Jingyi Zheng
    7. Jingsong Yan
    8. Hao Wang
    9. Hong Zhang
    10. Yan Li
    11. Jia Xiao

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study reports characterisation of hepatocyte molecular pathways affected by a glycyrrhizin derivative in both in vivo and in vitro mouse models of alcohol-associated liver disease. The authors show convincing evidence indicating that IPP delta isomerase 1 (Idi1) is an intermediate in these pharmacological effects, via the binding of the glycyrrhizin derivative to an upstream regulator of Idi1, HSD11B1, although some more quantitative analyses and better organisation of data would strengthen the study. The findings would be of interest to immunologists and pharmacologists interested in liver inflammation and its amelioration.

    Reviewed by eLife