eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Determining the off-target activity of antibiotics and novel translation initiation sites in mitochondria

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. James Marks
   2. Emma Young
   3. Markus Hafner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study presents findings on how prokaryotic antibiotics affect translation in mitochondrial ribosomes. Using mitoribosome profiling, the authors provide solid evidence that most tested antibiotics act similarly on bacterial and mitochondrial translation. Additionally, this work shows that alternative translation initiation events might exist in two specific mt-mRNAs (MT-ND1 and MT-ND5). However, additional biochemical and structural experiments are needed to support these findings.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Microstructural asymmetries of the planum temporale predict functional lateralization of auditory-language processing

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Peipei Qin
   2. Qiuhui Bi
   3. Zeya Guo
   4. Liyuan Yang
   5. Haokun Li
   6. Peng Li
   7. Xinyu Liang
   8. Junhao Luo
   9. Xiangyu Kong
   10. Yirong Xiong
   11. Bo Sun
   12. Sebastian Ocklenburg
   13. Gaolang Gong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors studied the relationship between structural and functional lateralization in the planum temporale region of the brain, whilst also considering the morphological presentation of a single or duplicated Heschl's gyrus. The analyses are compelling due to a large sample size, inter-rater reliability, and corrections for multiple comparisons. The associations in this important work might serve as a reference for future targeted-studies on brain lateralization.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. AI-enabled alkaline-resistant evolution of protein to apply in mass production

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Liqi Kang
   2. Banghao Wu
   3. Bingxin Zhou
   4. Pan Tan
   5. Yun (Kenneth) Kang
   6. Yongzhen Yan
   7. Yi Zong
   8. Shuang Li
   9. Zhuo Liu
   10. Liang Hong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work demonstrates the application of Pro-PRIME, a large language model, to engineer VHH antibodies with enhanced stability for extreme industrial environments. The evidence is convincing, showing through two rounds of design and experimental validation that AI-guided approaches can outperform traditional rational design methods. The solid methodology and results establish a foundation for further exploration of LLM-assisted protein engineering.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Sphingosine-1-phosphate signaling regulates the ability of Müller glia to become neurogenic, proliferating progenitor-like cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Olivia B Taylor
   2. Nicholas DeGroff
   3. Heithem M El-Hodiri
   4. Chengyu Gao
   5. Andy J Fischer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study investigates the signaling pathways regulating retinal regeneration. Convincing evidence shows that the sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) signaling pathway is inhibited following retinal injury. Small-molecule activators and inhibitors support a model in which S1P signaling must be inhibited to generate Müller glial progenitor cells-a key step in retinal regeneration. The presented results support the major conclusions. However, whether the drug treatments directly or indirectly affect the Müller cells remains unclear.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Neural circuit mechanisms for steering control in walking Drosophila

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Aleksandr Rayshubskiy
   2. Stephen L Holtz
   3. Alexander S Bates
   4. Quinn X Vanderbeck
   5. Laia Serratosa Capdevila
   6. Victoria Rockwell
   7. Rachel Wilson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work investigates how orientation signals detected in higher brain areas may be transformed into motor responses in behaving animals. The authors characterize two types of descending neurons (DNs) that connect the brain to motor units and are involved in different aspects of turning control. They further show that orientation signals act by preferentially increasing relative stimulation onto left- or right-turn-inducing DNs. These compelling results, together with the independent work that they have inspired, represent significant progress in our understanding of mechanisms of animal navigation.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Malnutrition drives infection susceptibility and dysregulated myelopoiesis that persists after refeeding intervention

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Alisa Sukhina
   2. Clemence Queriault
   3. Saptarshi Roy
   4. Elise Hall
   5. Kelly Rome
   6. Muskaan Aggarwal
   7. Elizabeth Nunn
   8. Ashley Weiss
   9. Janet Nguyen
   10. F Chris Bennett
   11. Will Bailis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of the impact of malnutrition on hematopoiesis and subsequently infection susceptibility. Support for the overall claims is convincing in some respects and incomplete in terms of identifying mechanism as highlighted by reviewers. This work will be of general interest to those in the fields of hematopoiesis, malnutrition, and dietary influence on immunity.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. GPRC6A as a novel kokumi receptor responsible for enhanced taste preferences by ornithine

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Takashi Yamamoto
   2. Kayoko Ueji
   3. Haruno Mizuta
   4. Chizuko Inui-Yamamoto
   5. Natsuko Kumamoto
   6. Yasuhiro Shibata
   7. Shinya Ugawa

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, the authors used rats to determine the receptor for a food-related perception that has been characterized in humans. The data are solid in terms of methods and analysis: the data show that this stimulus (ornithine) has some additive effects in terms of increasing preference and taste response in rats when it is mixed with other more common taste stimuli. Therefore, the combinations of experiments generally support (but do not conclusively prove) the hypothesis that the "kokumi" taste effect elicited by this stimulus in humans may be mediated by the specific receptor examined in the study.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling of multiregion brain cell count data

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Sydney Dimmock
   2. Benjamin MS Exley
   3. Gerald Moore
   4. Lucy Menage
   5. Alessio Delogu
   6. Simon R Schultz
   7. E Clea Warburton
   8. Conor J Houghton
   9. Cian O'Donnell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study proposes an important new approach to analyzing cell-count data, which are often undersampled and cannot be accurately assessed using traditional statistical methods. The case studies presented in the article provide compelling evidence of the superiority of the proposed methodology over existing approaches, which could promote the use of Bayesian statistics among neuroscientists. The authors have taken steps to make the methodology accessible, although some implementation difficulties are likely to remain.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Dopamine activity encodes the changing valence of the same stimulus in conditioned taste aversion paradigms

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Maxine K Loh
   2. Samantha J Hurh
   3. Paula Bazzino
   4. Rachel M Donka
   5. Alexandra T Keinath
   6. Jamie D Roitman
   7. Mitchell F Roitman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study utilizes an elegant approach to examine valence encoding of the mesolimbic dopamine system. The findings are valuable, demonstrating differential responses of dopamine to the same taste stimulus according to its valence (i.e., appetitive or aversive) and in alignment with distinct behavioral responses. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing, resulting from a well-controlled experimental design with minimal confounds and thorough reporting of the data.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Alzheimer-mutant γ-secretase complexes stall amyloid β-peptide production

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Parnian Arafi
    2. Sujan Devkota
    3. Emily Williams
    4. Masato Maesako
    5. Michael S Wolfe

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This manuscript provides fundamental studies to gain insight into the mutations in the presenilin-1 (PSEN1) gene on proteolytic processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP). The authors provide compelling evidence using mutations in PSEN to understand what drives alternative substrate turnover with convincing data and rigorous analysis. This deep mechanistic study provides a framework towards the development of small molecule inhibitors to treat AD.

    Reviewed by eLife