eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Early menarche and childbirth accelerate aging-related outcomes and age-related diseases: Evidence for antagonistic pleiotropy in humans

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Yifan Xiang
   2. Vineeta Tanwar
   3. Parminder Singh
   4. Lizellen La Follette
   5. Vikram Pratap Narayan
   6. Pankaj Kapahi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study uses Mendelian Randomization to provide evidence that early-life reproductive phenotypes (i.e., age at onset of menarche and age at first birth) have a significant impact on numerous health outcomes later in life. The empirical evidence provided by the authors supporting the antagonistic pleiotropy theory is solid. Theories of aging should be empirically tested and this study provides a good first step in that direction.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester protects Clostridioides difficile infection by toxin inhibition and microbiota modulation

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Yan Guo
   2. Yong Zhang
   3. Guizhen Wang
   4. Hongtao Liu
   5. Jianfeng Wang
   6. Xuming Deng
   7. Liuqin He
   8. Jiazhang Qiu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study by Guo and colleagues reports the inhibitory activity of caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) against TcdB, a key toxin produced by Clostridioides difficile. C. difficile infections are a major public health concern, and this manuscript provides interesting data on toxin inhibition by CAPE, a potentially promising therapeutic alternative for this disease. The strength of the evidence to support the conclusions is solid, with some concerns about the moderate effects on the mouse infection model and direct binding assays of CAPE to the toxin.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Unravelling the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying counterconditioning in humans

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Lisa Wirz
   2. Maxime C Houtekamer
   3. Jette de Vos
   4. Joseph E Dunsmoor
   5. Judith Homberg
   6. Marloes JAG Henckens
   7. Erno Hermans

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work combines self-report, neural and physiology data to examine the efficacy and mechanisms of counter conditioning versus extinction in reducing re-emergence of conditioned threat responses and show that this appears to rely on the nucleus accumbens rather than the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings are supported by convincing evidence, though some areas could benefit from a few targeted refinements. The findings will be of interest to researchers across multiple subfields, including neuroscientists, cognitive theory researchers, and clinicians, particularly those with an interest in clinical applications in trauma therapies.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. A conformational fingerprint for amyloidogenic light chains

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Cristina Paissoni
   2. Sarita Puri
   3. Luca Broggini
   4. Manoj K Sriramoju
   5. Martina Maritan
   6. Rosaria Russo
   7. Valentina Speranzini
   8. Federico Ballabio
   9. Mario Nuvolone
   10. Giampaolo Merlini
   11. Giovanni Palladini
   12. Shang-Te Danny Hsu
   13. Stefano Ricagno
   14. Carlo Camilloni

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses an important and longstanding question regarding the molecular mechanism of protein misfolding in Ig light chain (LC) amyloidosis (AL), a life-threatening condition. By combining advanced techniques, including small-angle X-ray scattering, molecular dynamics simulations, and hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry, the authors provide convincing evidence that the "H state" distinguishes amyloidogenic from non-amyloidogenic LCs. These findings not only offer novel insights into LC structural dynamics but also hold promise for guiding therapeutic strategies in amyloidosis and will be of particular interest to structural biologists, biophysicists, and many others working on amyloid diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Single-cell characterization of menstrual fluid at homeostasis and in endometriosis

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Petra C Schwalie
   2. Cemsel Bafligil
   3. Julie Russeil
   4. Magda Zachara
   5. Marjan Biocanin
   6. Daniel Alpern
   7. Evelin Aasna
   8. Bart Deplancke
   9. Geraldine Canny
   10. Angela Goncalves

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This basic research study presents useful data concerning the menstrual fluid composition and its potential for endometriosis biomarker research. However, despite solid bioinformatics analyses, the choice of markers used to separate or identify the different cell types needs to be justified and the results better discussed in relation to current knowledge of the pathophysiology of endometriosis.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Tuberculosis susceptibility in genetically diverse mice reveals functional diversity of neutrophils

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Marietta M Ravesloot-Chavez
   2. Erik Van Dis
   3. Douglas Fox
   4. Andrea Anaya-Sanchez
   5. Scott Espich
   6. Xammy Huu Nguyenla
   7. Sagar Rawal
   8. Helia Samani
   9. Mallory Ballinger
   10. Henry F Thomas
   11. Dmitri I Kotov
   12. Russell E Vance
   13. Michael W Nachman
   14. Sarah A Stanley

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into the host's variable susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, using a novel collection of wild-derived inbred mouse lines from diverse geographic locations, along with immunological and single-cell transcriptomic analyses. While the data are convincing, a deeper mechanistic investigation into neutrophil subset functions would have further enhanced the study. This work will interest microbiologists and immunologists in the tuberculosis field.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Proactive distractor suppression in early visual cortex

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. David Richter
   2. Dirk van Moorselaar
   3. Jan Theeuwes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important and well-written study uses functional neuroimaging in human observers to provide compelling evidence that activity in the early visual cortex is suppressed at locations that are frequently occupied by a task-irrelevant but salient item. This suppression appears to be general to any kind of stimulus and also occurs in advance of any item actually appearing. The work will be of great interest to psychologists and neuroscientists examining attention, perception, learning and prediction.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The ESCRT protein CHMP5 restricts bone formation by controlling endolysosome-mitochondrion-mediated cell senescence

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Fan Zhang
   2. Yuan Wang
   3. Luyang Zhang
   4. Chunjie Wang
   5. Deping Chen
   6. Haibo Liu
   7. Ren Xu
   8. Cole M Haynes
   9. Jae-Hyuck Shim
   10. Xianpeng Ge

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of CHMP5's role in regulating osteogenesis through its impact on cellular senescence. The evidence supporting the conclusion is convincing and the revised manuscript is largely improved. This paper holds potential interest for skeletal biologists who study the pathogenesis of age-associated skeletal disorders.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. MorphoCellSorter is an Andrews plot-based sorting approach to rank microglia according to their morphological features

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Sarah Benkeder
   2. Son-Michel Dinh
   3. Paul Marchal
   4. Priscille De Gea
   5. Muriel Thoby-Brisson
   6. Violaine Hubert
   7. Ines Hristovska
   8. Gabriel Pitollat
   9. Kassandre Combet
   10. Laura Cardoit
   11. Bruno Pillot
   12. Christelle Leon
   13. Marlene Wiart
   14. Serge Marthy
   15. Jérôme Honnorat
   16. Olivier Pascual
   17. Jean-Christophe Comte

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study describes a useful tool for assessing microglia morphology in a variety of experimental conditions. The MorphoCellSorter provides a solid platform for ranking microglia to reflect their morphology continuum and may offer new insight into changes in morphology associated with injury or disease. While the study provides an alternative approach to existing methods for measuring microglia morphology, the functional significance of the measured morphological changes were not determined.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Cellular evolution of the hypothalamic preoptic area of behaviorally divergent deer mice

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Jenny Chen
    2. Phoebe R Richardson
    3. Christopher Kirby
    4. Sean R Eddy
    5. Hopi E Hoekstra

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study identifies species- and sex-specific neuronal cell types and gene expression in the preoptic area (POA) to help understand the evolutionary divergence of social behaviors. The evidence from single-nucleus RNA sequencing and immunostaining is compelling and suggests that cellular differences in the POA may contribute to behavioral variations such as mating and parental care that are apparent in two closely related deer mouse species. These rich observations provide an entry point for future hypothesis-driven experiments to demonstrate a causal role for these populations in sex- or species-variable behaviors in vertebrates. These data will be a resource that is of value to behavioral neuroscientists.

    Reviewed by eLife